+THE LOVE OF CHRIST IMPELS US 25TH Sunday Sep.21, 2025
My dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ! As I read through the readings for this Eucharist I could not help thinking how appropriate they are for this Sunday and this week when we will have the memorial of St Vincent de Paul. The readings have much to say about our use of this world’s goods and the danger there is to “trample upon the needy and destroy the poor of the land.” Your lives here at Nazareth are all about caring for the poor, reaching out in love to all who are in need.
As St Paul in his letter to Timothy told us, you make supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings for everyone and seek daily to “lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity.” With St Paul, I know this is “pleasing to God our savior, who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth.” Your lives are dedicated to education, health care and social work. You allow yourselves to be guided by the values of simplicity, humility, and charity living out of your motto “The Love of Christ Impels Us.”
This Love of Christ is what is governing your lives and has guided you to reach out to the poor in many parts of the world. Since the1940s, you have gone to India, Nepal, Belize, and Botswana. In India, you have founded hospitals, clinics, and schools, focusing on programs for women, children, and people with disabilities. But then what is happening in these United States where yourselves as well as the monks of Gethsemani are experiencing very few being called to live our way of life.
In my own thinking and many of you have your own ideas of what’s happening, I feel we live in an all too affluent a society where we can too easily serve mammon rather than the living God. Is there just too much distraction for young people through the media, preventing them from seeing what is going on in their hearts? It is all too easy to get caught up in the polarization happening all around us. The aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s death is a good example of this where persons from all sides are finding fault with others rather than taking responsibility for the climate in which this is all happening.
Jesus telling us in the gospel that “the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light” is just one reminder of how easy it is for any of us to fall short of the love that impels us. It is all too easy for us to find fault with those with those with whom we live rather than be Christ’s loving presence for them.
If we are truly loving persons in our communities, we will create the perfect atmosphere for those seeking freedom from a world caught up in wealth and power. My own Cistercian Order of monks is right now having what is called a General Chapter in Assisi, Italy. Our leader, the Abbot General, has asked the Abbesses and Abbots of our communities to see how they can be more collaborative and avoid the danger of “constantly judging and condemning ourselves and each other” for this is what will make us living signs of Hope in our world.
We gather around this Altar this morning as persons of one human family. The Christ we receive in this Eucharist is the Christ already present in each of our lives. What we do to the least of our sisters and brothers we do to Him as your own life proclaims throughout our world. Let us then be filled with gratitude for this love that impels us all day and all night long.
Amos 8:4-7; 1 Tim 2:1-8; Luke 16:1-13