poor
Am I Seeing The Person, Or Just The Situation?
5th Sunday Of Lent
Deacon Tom Vert
Preached: April 6, 2025
About three years ago, I had a consulting contract in a rural area of India, in a town called Rajgangpur, in the province of Odisha. I went there six times and over that time I got to meet a nun named Sister Mary Peter at St. Mary’s church.
She and her fellow sisters had a mission to help the poorest of the poor, the Dalits, or “untouchable” families in this area who had the harshest life and toughest jobs. The parents had the jobs that no one else would do, like sweeping the streets, and cleaning the sewer channels by hand, which was very depressing and let to a high rate of alcoholism and early death. This led to many broken families, widows, orphans, and single mothers with children and no real work to sustain them.
On one of my first trips, when I looked at the “situation” I was distressed, but I only saw the “poor” and the broken families from afar. Over time, Sister Mary Peter had Carmela, and I meet the children first at an after-school tutoring centre that they had set up and it was such a joy, but I still just got a glimpse of the people, the poorest.
On my last trip there, I asked Sister if I could go and meet the people in their homes, to see the person and not just the situation. So, one afternoon, we went to visit a family in the poorest section of town, with no running water, no toilet facilities, and no electricity.
I had the privilege to meet Lily and her two children who were in high school at their house which was 100 sq. ft. and included the bedroom, family room and a small storage room with cooking done outside. She welcomed me like her own family with freshly made tea on the fire outside and cookies, even though she had nothing. We spent a lovely time together and talked to the kids about their dreams to become a nurse and a teacher. I had the honour to see each person as a child of God and not just as a “poor person in rural India”.
The gospel today shows us this same message, Jesus sees the person while the Pharisees and scribes see “the woman caught in adultery”. We hear that they brought the woman and made her stand in the middle, making her situation the key to their perspective.
“What do you say we should do” they ask Jesus? And we see that Jesus does not take the bait. He doesn’t look up at the situation, the crowd in a circle, the woman in the middle embarrassed and fearful. Instead, he bends down and writes on the ground with his finger, pausing, and then as a wise teacher asks the perfect person, the one without sin, to start the punishment of stoning.
Finally, when all have walked away, we see Jesus look at her as a person, talking to her one on one – where are they, he asks. He is full of compassion and love, following the wonderful phrase of God’s love from the letter of James “mercy triumphs over judgement”. “Go and sin no more!” and I am sure that she walked away with a feeling of love and not shame, a feeling of joy and not pain. Jesus saw her heart and overlooked the situation, bringing her back into the fold of God’s love.
The question today is do we see the person or the situation in our everyday life?
Do we see the situation of the people in the homeless tents in Hamilton as those people making our city a mess? Or do we see individuals who are struggling with mental health, with addiction and/or childhood pain and trauma, that we need to find a way to help those root causes, and not the symptoms that we bother us.
Do we see the barista as the situation of not getting our coffee and breakfast sandwich fast or hot enough, or do we see Mia or Amanda, who are studying at McMaster and working at Tim Hortons or Starbucks to help their education, and who are happy to be noticed an thanked as they give us 100% effort to serve us?
Do we see the situation of lonely people who are in retirement and long-term care homes as very sad and possibly even to be avoided? Or do we see a mother, father, grandparent, or a previous parishioner, who needs a visit, who needs someone to tell their story to and feel a touch or a hug?
This week, we are called to look around and ask, “Am I seeing the person, or just the situation?”
God Has Spoken
Christmas 2020
Fr. Mark Gatto
Posted: December 25, 2020
Luke describes a vision of shepherds going in haste to see something special. A multitude of Angels were praising God singing, “Glory to God in the highest heaven,…” It all seems like such a wonderful, magical moment. But, what we see is such a simple, ordinary and very human scene. A mother, a father and a weak new born baby.
The Word became flesh. A child was born among us wrapped in swaddling clothes. In this little baby, the God of the universe, the God who is beyond all and embraces all, wanted to speak to humanity. God entered our history and time, became one of us, to speak a word to us.
So, we speak of Jesus as the Word of God and sometimes speak of Jesus as the face of God.
The invisible God was made visible in our midst.
In Jesus, the Word made flesh, what has God spoken to humanity? Here are a few words that capture some of the ultimate Word that God spoke to us in the coming of Jesus:
Love. That God is love and that we are loved by this God and that we are all called to live a life of love. We are all connected in a love beyond anything we can imagine. Wherever there is true love in this life, we are connected to God. It is love that keeps us connected to those who have died and gone before us. Love and connection is the foundation and basis of our universe. God’s Word is a word of love.
Human dignity. St. John Paul II once described Christianity as “an attitude of amazement at the dignity of the human being.” We need to recognize our own dignity, each one of us has a dignity rooted in God. Therefore, we need to treat each person in this life with a sense of their dignity. The homeless, the poor, those of other religions or no religion, each member of our family, each friend and each stranger. The dignity of each human being should be the guide to every decision we make politically, economically, personally. How we respond to refugees, to people of other nations and to each neighbour. God’s Word reveals our human dignity.
Forgiveness. So much guilt can afflict us, but God has spoken a word of forgiveness. God is so generous in offering forgiveness. God is extreme, even seeming foolish in offering forgiveness. God wants to overcome evil, not by force or violence, but by wiping it out through forgiveness.
This should lead us to make forgiveness the heart of our way of life, our spirituality. In fact, we recognize that call to forgiveness, in order to be like God, each time we pray the Lord’s Prayer. God’s Word says to us, “I forgive you.”
Poor. The rich and the powerful and the famous are not worth more than the poor, the weak, the unknown. God sees beyond all of our world’s ways of judging. God did not come as a powerful force to dominate and control the world. God came as a poor little baby with no power at all. For the God of the universe does not desire to control us but to set us free. God’s Word is a word to the poor, including the poverty in each one of us.
The final word that I will use today that captures something of that Word of God spoken in Jesus, is the word, Kind. This is a God who is everlasting kindness. When we are kind, we are being like God. When I decided to become a priest, my father only had one piece of advice, “be kind to the people.” It seemed so simplistic. Yet, the choice to be kind makes a big difference in our world.
Think about your own experience. During your day, when one person shows you kindness how does that make you feel? But, if one person shows you unkindness during the day, how does that make you feel? A kind word or a kind act can make such a difference.
God’s Word is a word that says, Be Kind.
In Jesus, the Word of God, our God has spoken to humanity. The words I shared here capture some of what God wanted to say to us. Take some time to think about what other words you would include in this story. Someone once asked, “what is the most valuable prayer of Christmas?” His answer was, that the most valuable prayer of Christmas is Silence.
This Christmas, take a moment of silence, listen in your heart to the word God has spoken in Jesus and listen within for the word spoken to you.