I celebrated Mass at the Maritime Academy in King’s Point, NY, this morning at 9 AM. Half the student body was on their way to sea duty. There were also exams this week. Here’s the homily I preached:

30th Sunday a

When I was a boy years ago  over in Bayonne, NJ –that’s the first city in New Jersey you see as you come into New York Harbor– there was a phrase they used to describe new immigrants. “They just got off the boat.” Immigrants came to our country then by boat.

Our first reading today from the Book of Exodus tells us about immigrants and how to treat them. “Thus says the LORD ‘You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt.’” Look at where you came from, God says, and ask how you would be want to be treated. The lesson: Don’t mistreat immigrants, you were once an immigrant yourselves..

My grandfather came to this country from Ireland in 1872. Times there were bad then and he came looking for work. When he got off the boat he got a job in the oil refinery in Bayonne. He married and had five kids; he had to raise them himself when his wife died shortly after the birth of their last child. 

My mother, his second daughter, said he couldn’t read or write when he came here. She taught him. She said he never missed a day of work or Mass on Sunday. He lived with us before he died. I remember him sitting on the porch in the summer, proudly reading the Bayonne Times, the local newspaper.  He wanted to know what was going on. He seemed to know everyone going by and enjoyed passing the time of day with them. He was thankful for this country and he did his best to make it better. 

In the gospel today the Pharisees ask Jesus what the greatest commandment is.  He said,”You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. Then be added a second commandment. The second is like it, he said.”You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 

When they asked Jesus “Who is my neighbor?” you remember his answer. Your neighbor is everyone who’s making the journey of life with you,whether they look like you or not, whether they talk like you or not, whether they think like you or not – they are your neighbor.

Wouldn’t our world be great if we treated each other that way, as neighbors, the same as us,  no matter how different we all may seem. Our world today doesn’t seem like that at all, does it?

A few years ago, Pope Francis  wrote a letter entitled “Fratelli Tutti”, an extended reflection on the parable of the Good Samaritan. In the letter, the pope goes beyond how we treat our neighbor as individuals. He speaks of how the nations of the world need to be neighbors to one another. 

Our world is not a good neighborhood now. “ For all our hyper-connectivity, we witness a fragmentation that made it more difficult to resolve problems that affect us all.”  We facing a changed world where all the nations of the world need to work together, as neighbors, not grudgingly, but dreaming together. 

“Today, in many countries, hyperbole, extremism and polarization have become political tools. Employing a strategy of ridicule, suspicion and relentless criticism, in a variety of ways one denies the right of others to exist or to have an opinion. Their share of the truth and their values are rejected and, as a result, the life of society is impoverished and subjected to the hubris of the powerful. Political life no longer has to do with healthy debates about long-term plans to improve people’s lives and to advance the common good, but only with slick marketing techniques primarily aimed at discrediting others. In this craven exchange of charges and counter-charges, debate degenerates into a permanent state of disagreement and confrontation.

 Let us dream, then, as a single human family, as fellow travelers sharing the same flesh, as children of the same earth which is our common home, each of us bringing the richness of his or her beliefs and convictions, each of us with his or her own voice, brothers and sisters all.”

“Love your neighbor as yourself” has many meanings..

One reason I like coming over here to the Maritime Academy to help Fr. Gilbert when he’s away is that I think you are boat people; your neighborhood is the sea. Some of.you will be on boats soon taking you to all parts of the great sea that connects many nations and peoples. 90% percent of the world’s trade takes place on the sea. Nations are fighting over trade routes on that sea now. Commercial interests are trying to mine it for its riches. Like the rest of our world, the sea is an uneasy neighborhood now.

It needs people who love it and care for it. The commandment of Jesus has many meanings. As we celebrate Mass today, ask the Lord to keep you safe as you go to sea, but also ask God to make the dream of the Creator your dream. God, who created heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in it, made it good. Love your neighbor, the sea. Keep the dream alive.