22/02/21 Monday First Week of Lent
Remember Matthew 25: 31-46
Jesus said to his disciples:
I was hungry and you gave me food;
I was thirsty and you gave me drink;
I was a stranger and you made me welcome;
naked and you clothed me,
sick (and dying) and you visited me,
in prison and you came to see me.”
Reflect Today’s ‘least’
Every group we meet, work with, or live among,
have those who are the ‘least’ – and they badly need our support.
In the family it can be the mentally or physically challenged one,
the one who is suffering from substance or emotional addiction,
the confused angry teenager who is always in the wrong,
the one who is habitually in trouble or
the one who just does not fit in socially,
or someone suffering with the horrible pandemic,
in hospital or at home alone.
In the workplace it can be the person who may not be so bright
the one who is passed over, never promoted or easily fired,
the forcefully retired,
the unemployed.
The socially challenged
It can be the neighbour or the neighbour from hell,
or someone one who has been accused, arrested, and/or convicted of a crime
or someone serving time or their innocent thought shamed family
or the neglected or unjustly treated immigrant/refugee A Jesus final gesture.
or the terrified innocent crime victim.
It can simply be the person who is just ‘different’ from us.
In his book ‘What shall I say’, www.columba.ie), Kenneth Payne writes of Mahatma Gandhi how in his student days in South Africa, he became deeply interested in the Bible, especially the Sermon on the Mount. He became convinced that Christianity was the answer to the caste system that has plagued India for centuries.
He seriously considered becoming a Christian himself until one day he went to a Christian church to attend Mass and take formal instructions. He was stopped at the entrance and gently told that if he desired to attend Mass he was welcome to do so in a church reserved for black people. Gandhi left feeling the Christian Church was not for him or his kind.
Jesus and his teaching had passed the test but – we his followers had not.
Pray
Jesus,
lover of the poor and the ‘least’ amongst us.
We have so many people to pray for today
enlarge our hearts to care for all the my family, friends, and our enemies,
Help us to try harder to understand others who live violently
and inspire us to share what we have with those most in need as you did
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