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_{Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
September 30, 2007} 

          Today's Gospel reading is the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.  This story is found only in Luke's Gospel.  Why was it so important to Luke to include this parable, while all the other gospel writers ignored it?  Luke wanted to stress the point that we are, always and everywhere, being challenged to love one another as Jesus loves us!

          This gospel event is a simple story about two people.  One is a poor man named Lazarus, who is in dire need.  The other is a rich man, un-named, but in a position to help Lazarus in his need.  The needs of the poor man are small, and it would take very little effort for the rich man to help him.  Unfortunately, the rich man never got around to helping Lazarus.

          The sin for which the rich man suffers after he dies is not that he ordered Lazarus off his property.  It is not that he kicked Lazarus each time he passed him.  It is not that he yelled obscenities at him whenever he saw him.

          The sin for which the rich man suffers is simply that he paid no attention to Lazarus.  The sin for which the rich man suffers is simply that he ignored Lazarus.  It is not a sin of commission...doing something he should not do.  It is a sin of omission...not doing something he should have done.  The rich man suffers terribly for the sin of not lifting a finger to help someone he could have helped with very little effort on his part!

          Often we hear Jesus teach by means of parables.  It can be helpful to ask ourselves, "Who am I in the parable?"  The rich man in the story has no name.  Perhaps the lack of a name is a sign to us that we should think whether we are that man who was so complacent, so comfortable, so self-satisfied, that he did not even notice Lazarus at his gate, even though it was obvious that Lazarus was very ill, that he was covered with sores, and that he was so hungry that he longed to eat the scraps which fell from the rich man's table. 

          But there is another way to see ourselves in today's parable.  Before we too readily agree that we should be alert to see and care for all those who are in dire need, we may do well to recognize that all of us are Lazarus.  To be more precise, we have been in his predicament in a spiritual if not physical way.

          Without our redemption by Jesus Christ we were even worse off than Lazarus.  We had no external sores, but within we suffered the effects of sin.  We lacked proper nourishment, not of mere table scraps, but of the Holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.  We were outside the gate of the Church, and without Christ we would never have been able to cross the threshold of His house here on earth in order to one day enter His eternal home in heaven.

          God took pity on us!  He sent us his Son as our great High Priest, our Mediator.  God has given us the faith to believe in the redemptive power of Christ's death and to embrace the truth of his Resurrection, which is the source of our sure and firm hope.  God has given us the wisdom to embrace the Eucharist, as the sacred Body of the Lord given up for us and his precious Blood poured out for us.

          Spiritually, we are like Lazarus in his physical misery, but we have become like him as he was lifted up by angels.  We are blessed indeed that Jesus was not as indifferent to us as the rich man was to Lazarus.  To make the application which Jesus intended in the parable, close your eyes for a moment and imagine Lazarus has come back to earth.  Do you think he would ever be as uncaring and neglectful as was the rich man? 

Do you think he could ever ignore someone now, who is in as wretched condition as he was?  Do you believe Lazarus would be anything other than a person of great compassion, who would do much more than give a beggar the scraps from his table?

          But we do not have to imagine Lazarus coming back from the dead.  We are Lazarus, every one of us!  All that God has done for us should be plenty of motivation for our being generous to those in need, kind to those who are without comfort, and loving toward everyone as God is toward us.  In the Preface of the Mass I will pray for all of us, "Father, we do well always and everywhere to give you thanks."  Our liturgical prayer of thanksgiving should move us always and everywhere to treat everyone with the kind of generous love which God has shown to us in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ, our High Priest and our Redeemer.