A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint John. Our lord said to Nicodemus, yes, god so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him may not die but may have eternal life. God did not send the son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him avoids condemnation, but whoever does not believe is already condemned. The judgment in question is this, the light came into the world, perfect past tense.
But men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were wicked. Everyone who practices evil hates the light. He does not want to come even near it for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who acts in truth comes into the light to make clear that his deeds are done in god. And this is the gospel of the lord.
Praise the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. There's one thing I must say about mother Teresa. She gets around. I know that she has her own seven forty seven or what, but she sure moves around.
While I was down in Cartagena, she was down there, up around Bogota, and, there was a picture in El Tiempo. I don't know whether the picture was posed or not, but it showed her in her very humble, diminutive way accepting a check from some big, government official. And here the two of them were standing together, and she was receiving this check for a hospital for kids. And right in between them on the wall was a good big crucifix. And the thought struck me, there you have truly Catholic social work.
There you have people I hope so. I I know it was clear in her mind. Remember, sit here's what she says, and she said this. When somebody said, how can you love these stinking, miserable people that you take in that are dying already? How can you love them?
And mother Theresa answered, I don't love them. I love god. This is something that the that our philanthropists our social workers have no conception of. That there's a god and that they're they're that what they're doing for the poor, they are doing for the poor because they see the the divine in that ugliness. Ugliness.
Now I am not preaching the crucifix. There is nothing glamorous. There's nothing beautiful. There's nothing worthy. There's nothing desirable about pain and suffering, and there's nothing good about ugliness.
And yet, of course, we're cultivating the ugly today. Just look at the New York Times every Sunday. Look at women's fashions, and you'll know we're cultivating the ugly. But there's nothing good to be said for the ugly. There's nothing good to be said for pain and for evil.
The crucifix was a heinous form of execution. Not just a decent form of execution, but the most outrageous kind of execution. Aristotle's father-in-law was executed by the crucifixion. It was a common form of getting rid of undesirable political people. What does that unless you have the empty tomb behind the crucifix, what does the crucifix mean?
It means absolutely nothing. It was an absolute waste. The crucifix with Christ dying on the cross is nothing but defeat. Unless you have an open empty tomb behind it. That is not because of the cross that we tell a person who is suffering or in trouble or ill to look at the crucifix and identify with Christ, it's not that we're telling them to cultivate pain.
We're telling them to remember the empty tomb, that that man on the cross was God is God. Christ is living. It's not perfect past tense. And that picture, that of mother Teresa and that government man giving her the check, with that big crucifix right between them. It probably was accidental because Columbia is not a great worshiper of the crucifix.
Neither is El Tiempo any more than the New York Times, which it tries to emulate. But to see that crucifix there, that gives you the whole answer to why this woman is doing what she is doing. She is serving God first, primarily. But there's no way you can serve god without loving yourself and without loving your neighbor as you love yourself. But this is nonsense if all we have to put behind it is our love of humanity.
I just read yesterday well, this morning, I just read the declaration of the secular humanists, or they call themselves humanists. If all we have to justify our duty, obligation, to help our neighbor. If all we have is human worth, then I say forget it. Why should I do it? Why?
And our lord never told us to love man as man. Even if you see, this this garbage is getting into our liturgy. When I said in my office this morning, I prayed in one of the prayers of intercession that we will make this world more human. Christ didn't come into this world to make it more human. Christ came into this world to save humanity from itself, to bring it back to god.
That old Pentecatechism, why did god make you? And, brother you see, we, a little kid, first time in school, learned this, that God made me to know him, to love him, to serve him in this world, to be happy with him in the next. That is the greatest philosophy that was ever proposed. Not there's not a word in there about serving man or women to serve God. God is first.
You know, this is so completely forgotten today. So that when that check that changed hands from the government official to mother Teresa and then went on to bring food and and and shelter and some comfort to these little children. When that took place, it wasn't taking place because Teresa loves human beings. She loves what's on that cross, and she loves what's on the cross because behind the cross, you have an empty tomb. If Christ be not risen, vain is your faith, Vain is our preaching.
But if there's anything certain about the reports of the resurrection, it is that there was an empty tomb that has never been contested. In the name of the father, son, the holy spirit. Amen.