“’Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you?  When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’…Amen I say to you as long as you did it for one of the least, you did it for me.” Matthew 25, 31-46 Readings

Jesus was tempted to be a messiah of another kind, a messiah marked by ” power, success, and dominion and not by the total gift on the Cross, not by the messianism of gift and selfless love.” (Benedict XVI)

You don’t need to be hungry, thirsty, or sick; you don’t have to die. You can be above all that, Satan said to him. You can have all the kingdoms of this world. You can be a privileged religious leader who tells God what to do. One who receives instead of gives.

“Away with you, Satan,” Jesus says and he leaves the Jordan Valley. He goes, not to Jerusalem, center of religious and political power, but fo Galilee to give to those who “live in darkness and the shadow of death.”, to those described in today’s gospel as “the least:” the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the stranger, the sick, the prisoner. Jesus identifies with them.

“You shall love your neighbor as youself,” Moses teaches in today’s first reading. We must follow him. How? The readings this week tell us–by prayer.  “When did we see you?…” they say. Prayer helps us to see. Remember how much prayer was a part of Mother Teresa’s ministry to the poor. She saw in “the least” “Christ in disguise.” She saw because she was a woman of prayer which gave her eyes to see. Duk Soon Fwang in her painting of the saint befow has tears from her eyes giving life to an abandoned child.

There’s a grace in this season for seeing the least this way. Let’s ask for it

Lord Jesus Christ, may I see you in my neighbor, especially those “in disguise.” those in need who may seem unlike you.

May I love you in my neighbors, and find you in the least of them. Amen.

I ask myself who gave me the gift of life? I breathe, I know things, above all I know God and can hope for the kingdom of heaven and the sight of glory, however darkly as in a mirror I see it now.

I’m a child of God, one with Christ. Where did I get this; who gave it to me? I look at the world around me. Who gave me eyes to see the beauty of the sky, the sunlit universe,  the countless stars, the harmony of living things?

I feel the rain nourishing the earth bringing food to us all. I have family, friends. Who gave them to me? Can I see how generous God is to me and not be generous to all creation? How can I misuse the gifts I have been given?

God sends down rain on the just and the unjust. The sun rises on all creation. Birds have the air; fish have water. God gives abundantly. How can I say it’s only mine that’s meant for all?

Adapted from a reading from St. Gregory Nazienzen

For Today’s readings; http://www.usccb.org

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