Homily for Thursday, 24 July 2014– Ferial

Thursday of the 16th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Jeremiah 2:1-3, 7-8, 12-13; Psalm 36:6-7ab, 8-9, 10-11; Matthew 13:10-17

How strong is our prayer life? How strong is our relationship with God, and how does our relationship with God; our prayer life connect with our life of service toward one another; our attention to social justice?

The answers to these questions may seem clear to most of us. Already we are gathered here to worship the Lord as one faith community at Mass. I hear on a regular basis from members of our community here at St. Kateri of how they serve the poor; visit the sick; comfort the dying or people who have recently lost loved ones, and many other acts of service, justice, and mercy.

Prayer and service; social justice; attention to what we as Church call “the common good” are fundamentally connected. The prophet Jeremiah in our first reading laments that the people of Israel have neglected this connection. Jeremiah says, in what is especially poignant to me, that “the priests asked not, ‘Where is the LORD?’”

To ask “Where is the LORD”; to keep in mind the connection between prayer and service is not just for us priests. It is a reminder to each and every one of us as Christian disciples. If we neglect to ask, “Where is the LORD” when we work among the poor; when we visit and bring communion to the sick; when we comfort the dying or those who have lost loved ones; however we respond to another’s needs, we forget how vital prayer is to all these acts of service and justice.

How often, then, do we ask, when we act kindly; justly; mercifully toward another person, “Where is the LORD”? How often are our actions of Christian service enlightened and enlivened by our prayer? I think that, in our Gospel reading, Jesus draws our attention to this same connection between prayer and acts of service; justice; kindness; mercy when he says, “To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”

Without prayer, even our acts of service, as outwardly wonderful as they are, become empty. We become like those who “have not” and so even what we do have, the gift from God to serve one another with justice, kindness, and mercy, “will be taken away.” Christian service and discipleship become devoid of God for those who neglect to ask, “Where is the LORD”?

And so we return to our first question: How does our relationship with God; our prayer life connect with our life of Christian service; with our attention to social justice? A long as these two aspects of our faith connect well with each other, we will be counted among those in God’s kingdom who have; those who in serving one another remember to ask prayerfully, ““Where is the LORD”? We will be a people to whom still “more will be given” and who will “grow rich” in God’s blessings.