A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint John. Jesus crossed the Sea Of Galilee to the shore of Tiberias. A vast crowd kept following him because they saw the signs that he was performing for the sick. Jesus then went up to the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. The Jewish feast of Passover was very near, and then when Jesus looked up and caught sight of the vast crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, where shall we buy bread for all of these people to eat?
Philip replied, not even with 200 wages could we buy bread enough to give each one of these people even a mouthful. One of Jesus' disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, remarked to him, there is a boy here who has five barley loaves and a couple of dried fish. But what good is that for so many people? Jesus said, have the people sit down. Now even though the men numbered about 5,000, there was plenty of grass for them to find a place on the ground.
Jesus then took the loaves of bread, gave thanks, and passed the bread around to those sitting. He did the same thing with the dried fish as much as they wanted. When everybody had had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, gather up the crusts that are left over so that nothing will go to waste. At this, they gathered up 12 baskets full of pieces left over from those who had been fed with the five barley loaves. When the people saw this this sign that Jesus had performed, they began to say, this is undoubtedly the prophet who has come into the world.
At that, Jesus realized that they would come to carry him off to make him king. So he fled back to the mountain alone. And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. Yesterday, I spoke to you about Edith Stein, the Jewish extraordinary Jewish philosopher, the disciple of Husserl, who became well known in Germany and France in her own right, who became a very strong champion in what is called phenomenology, who, in a very unexpected way, became a Christian, a Catholic, and a Carmelite nun.
Beginning first at Cologne, and then fleeing Cologne to escape the Nazis' persecution of the Jews, and going to Holland into a convent at Echt. And then when Holland was overrun, refusing to go to Switzerland without her sister Rosa, who had also become a Catholic, and so stayed inept, was taken by the Nazis, and exterminated in Auschwitz. Now she was taken with other Jewish with other Catholic and Christian Jews because especially Catholic Jews because the arch the Bishop of Utrecht had spoken out with great bluntness against the persecution of the Jews. So the Nazis did this in retribution because they had exempted Jews who had become Christians from being deported. But when the bishop spoke out against the persecution of the Jews, then the Nazis took revenge and made a clean sweep of all Jews, Catholic, Christian, and otherwise.
Now the point I want to make this morning. Yesterday, I the point I made yesterday was a was a was based upon her name. Her name and religion was Saint Teresa Benedicta A Croce, which means Saint Teresa. Benedicta, blessed. A, by croce, the cross.
Not of the cross, but blessed, made happy, saved by the cross. By the cross, the ablative of agent. She carried she had a tremendous awareness of herself as a Jewish woman, and she certainly was aware of herself as a Jewish scholar. Now I'm not exaggerating. She was extraordinary, And she was a feminist, knowledge I mean, she was a very outstanding gal, believe me.
But she had a tremendous awareness of her personal personal response. Notice, not collective, not community, not society, but mine. Mine. Responsibility to represent her people in suffering. She had that awareness.
Now don't ask me how she got it. She had it. I'm something of a phenomenologist myself. The holy father followed in that line too, you know. I keep pretty good company at times.
Now the point I want to make this morning. Here is a young woman who was brought up in a well-to-do Jewish family, who had been a scholar, and a student, and a professor, and a writer, and a lecturer, and all that kind of thing. She didn't know beans about how to scrub a floor decently, or how to set a table, or how to wash clothes, or how to do any of the ordinary and highly important things of life. She knew a lot of the unimportant things like how to read Latin and Greek and stuff like that. So when she went into Cologne, into that convict, the Carmelites, they and they didn't cut any corners.
She was she was just one of the novices. And she didn't know how to do anything. Practical. But she tried to do it. Now here's the point I want to make.
She took it all with a smile. Now I'm not exaggerating this. This is fact. I I don't deal with a lot of stuff. There's plenty of testimony on this score.
She she laughed at herself, and of course the others laughed with her because it was laughable, some of the things she did. Because I say, didn't know beans about how to do anything practical. Then when she went to Eck, there was a whole new beginning there. Now, as I said, her her basic principle came from Saint Teresa I mean, her her basic ideas about spirituality and leading a life following Christ came from Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint John of the Cross, both Carmelites, of course. The first principle was to transform your life into Christ.
Your life, individual you, here and now in the circumstances you find yourself. To put as Saint Paul says, to put on Christ. I I I challenge anyone to dispute that. I mean, a matter of fact, that's what we're all called upon to do. The the very whole business about baptism does that.
We we become a new man, we put on Christ, we give the kid a we kid a nice little white garment to put on and all of that. We give them a life to carry. You are a new person, but that has to be achieved in life. How do you achieve it? How do you go about doing this thing?
Now we're told by so many and I'm not talking about just South America, I'm talking about USA. We're in the last twenty five years, we've been told to go out. Well, you must go out and do good for the poor. Well, you can do that and not even be a good pagan. Not even a good pagan.
You could be a very honest to God atheist and be good to the poor. Now remember, Christ said we should be good to the poor. But the point I'm making is that is not the answer to the Christian life on if you exclude Christ. And what do you mean by excluding Christ? It means you're excluding your transformation, and that's a personal individual thing.
And you can't slough it off by good works for other people. That's altruism. John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, that that crowd. Very sincere men. So the second point that Teresa Benedicta Acroce, Sister Teresa, blessed by the cross.
Her second principle was your job. Scrubbing those floors when you don't know how to scrub them. Doing the washing when you don't do a good job of washing. The menial tasks of a novice in a convent, in Cologne, or an Echt, or an Auschwitz. What's the difference?
Celebrating here the feast of a martyr. We're all called upon to do the same thing he did to give our lives for Christ. We we we don't have different vocations. We're all called to that. But how do you do it?
What are you supposed to be doing? And above all, how do you do it? Unless you can answer that question, we're we're we're we're we're frustrated. But we know the answer to it. We know the answer.
It's following Jesus. It's doing the daily job. It's the opus dei, the work of the Lord, and that's not a million miles away. It's on our threshold. But we have to recognize it, and we have to get out of a dream world and come down into the world of reality to be blessed by the cross.
In the name of the father, and the son, and holy spirit. Amen.