These reflections are a result of more than 40 years of ministry as a Roman Catholic priest. Most of these years I spent in the Diocese of Charlotte which covers Western North Carolina. Now I am retired, and live in Medellín, Colombia where I continue to serve as a priest in the Archdiocese of Medellín.
Then Jesus said to them, "I ask you, is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?" Looking around at them all, he then said to him, "Stretch out your hand." He did so and his hand was restored. But they became enraged and discussed together what they might do to Jesus. (Lk 6:1-6)
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/090924.cfm
Saint Peter Claver (1580-1654) sought to do good and to save life. He was a Jesuit missionary to the New World who found himself in Cartagena, Colombia, which was a center of the Atlantic slave trade. He dedicated his life to ministry to those who had been enslaved. He personally baptized over 300,000 slaves. His feast day, September 9, is the National Day of Human Rights in Colombia.
My brothers and sisters, show no partiality as you adhere to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. For if a man with gold rings and fine clothes comes into your assembly, and a poor person in shabby clothes also comes in, and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Sit here, please, ” while you say to the poor one, “Stand there, ” or “Sit at my feet, ” have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil designs? (Jas 2:1-5)
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/090824.cfm
According to the Letter of James, God chooses “those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom.” When the Lord opens our eyes, he intends for us to see. But as the saying goes, “There are none so blind as those who will not see.”
To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clad and roughly treated, we wander about homeless and we toil, working with our own hands. When ridiculed, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we respond gently. We have become like the world’s rubbish, the scum of all, to this very moment. (1 Cor 4:6b-15)
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/090724.cfm
Paul speaks about the cost of being a disciple. Does he have regrets? Not at all, as Paul joyfully says, “I became your father in Christ Jesus through the Gospel.” If Paul is one of our “fathers” in Christ, then the Blessed Virgin Mary is definitely one of our “mothers” in Christ.
It does not concern me in the least that I be judged by you or any human tribunal; I do not even pass judgment on myself; I am not conscious of anything against me, but I do not thereby stand acquitted; the one who judges me is the Lord. (1 Cor 4:1-5)
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/090624.cfm
A long time ago, in a parish far, far away, I founded an AIDS ministry. Some time later I was being attacked by a group of ‘concerned parishioners.’ So one Sunday I addressed the issue in a homily and this is how I concluded: “As a pastor and a priest, I will not turn my back on those who are living with HIV/AIDS. As a pastor and a priest, I will not turn my back on our gay brothers and sisters and their families. One day I will have to stand before our Lord and give an accounting of my priestly ministry. He is the one to judge me--not you. And what is the measure he will use? . . . ‘”as often as you did it for one of these least ones, you did it to me.”’
So let no one boast about human beings, for everything belongs to you, Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world or life or death, or the present or the future: all belong to you, and you to Christ, and Christ to God. (1 Cor 3:18-23)
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/090524.cfm
The politics of division, whether in civil society or the church, always seeks to divide, distract and diminish. Paul invites the Corinthian community not to focus on personalities, such Paul, Apollos, or Cephas (Peter), but rather to lift our hearts and minds to Christ and God.
