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Memorial of Saint Francis Xavier

Readings of the Day 
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It is hard not to notice themes of building up and being torn down in
the reading from Isaiah and the Gospel of Matthew today. In the
ancient world, fortifications were matters of life and death; some
invading force was always on the horizon (the Holy Land is poor in
natural resources, but it's on the road to everywhere else).
Properly built "walls and ramparts" were the difference
between security or slavery. All of which leads to Isaiah and Matthew
upending that model, asserting that one's trust and faith are
better placed in God. All things built of humankind -defensive
forts, political empires, humble dwellings - are subject to
deterioration and eventual ruin. God is the one true foundation that
does not fail.

Some will struggle with the first verse of Matthew, wondering if they
themselves are among those who call out "Lord, Lord" but
will not enter the Kingdom of heaven. Am I prayerful enough?
Sufficiently repentant? Humble, forgiving, loving enough? Jesus tells
his disciples that it's a question of where we put our trust.
Words are cheap, after all. The test is in the doing: doing the will
of the Father. Or, as others have better said, the test is one of
orthopraxy (right action) rather than orthodoxy (right belief).

Yesterday, God came to me in the form of Erica. She had lost her home
to wildfire at the end of the summer and spent the next months
"camping" until temperatures dropped. Now in Spokane for
housing, she offered that she'd been denied in her efforts
because she owns two pit bulls. She described that her children had
been removed from her custody by the state years ago, and that her
dogs were now her children, with personalities that uncannily matched
her human children. As she cried in frustration of wanting a stable
place to live - even as she was having to leave a motel room
because of bedbugs (salt in the wound!) - I felt myself hearing
her basic humanity, her suffering after losing her children, her
renewed trauma after the fire. Every day at Catholic Charities, God
comes to us in distressing disguises. It is our vocation to seek to do
God's will in offering hope of a better tomorrow, in the doing,
in the trusting. Lord Jesus, come!

Scott Cooper is Director of Parish Social Ministry for Catholic
Charities of Eastern Washington and a member of the CCUSA Parish
Social Ministry Leadership Team.




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