The following is a transcript of Bishop Caggiano’s homily, given Sunday morning, September 29, at St. Augustine
My dear sisters and brothers in the Lord, today in our second reading, St. James wastes no time to be quite courageous and quite direct in calling to task the landowners and merchants of his own age, who, because of the unjust practices that they ascribed to, caused many, most especially their own workers, to live in poverty while they grew rich. And we recall what he told them. He warned them of the judgment that awaits them, for all their possessions will be like corrosion.
And when you consider, my friends, that St. James was writing to Christians, could you imagine the horror he felt when those who claimed faith in Jesus Christ, savior and redeemer, the one who came to have mercy, to love all, especially those who are poor, how they quickly betrayed their faith for money.
Two thousand years have passed, my friends. Not much has changed. For we still live in a world that, unfortunately, is held in many ways in the group of the ‘sites’ and the ‘sites’ of the tiny kinds, where those who are poor struggle to have just the basic necessities of life. And sadly, in many countries, including our own, there are more and more becoming poor, whereas there are those who are becoming more and more rich.
What do we do about it? For St. James is also speaking to you and me.
Now, of course, my friends, the natural response would simply to be to say what we are trying to do, I presume in our own individual lives, and that is to help those who are poor by our generosity and our time and our volunteerism. And all of that is a work of the Holy spirit, and all of that is very good. You and I are called to be the hands and the feet and the heart of Jesus in the world. And so each time we live in charity and mercy, each time we reach out to a brother or sister, neighbor or friend, or even stranger to help them in their material need, we are fulfilling the will of God. We are helping to build the Kingdom of God.
But my friends, allow me to offer one other possible bit of homework for you and I to do. And this will not be easy to do. This will make you uncomfortable. And quite frankly, I will offer it because it will make me uncomfortable as well. But why is there so much material poverty? Why, after all these centuries, is the world still facing so much injustice? Why?
Perhaps part of the answer, my friends, is simply this. Spiritual poverty in large part creates material poverty. To put it another way, when those who are in leadership and those who follow Jesus are spiritually poor, when they do not embrace that which the Lord asks of us wholeheartedly, without compromise, without mediocrity, when those who follow in the footsteps of Jesus do not cast out the sins that always threaten us, including the sins of avarice and jealousy, the sins of complacency and mediocrity. When you and I do not attend to our spirits and allow them to become poor, then there is little hope that injustice in all its forms can be truly addressed by all of us, not just some of us.
So my friends, I ask you, where are you poor in your spirit? Where in your life, in mine, in our spiritual lives, do we need to convert, repent, or simply grow? Is it the fact that we have just accepted the situation and have come to the conclusion nothing can be done of it? Are you and I just simply content of reaching out and helping those around us and not speaking a prophetic voice to the world as we heard the Book of Numbers, to be able to speak the truth to power, even when power does not want to hear the truth?
We will be voting in a few weeks. How much time will you and I take to truly reflect on that important act and to discern, perhaps with some trouble, who it is that can lead us on every level of government to help build the Kingdom of God, one brick at a time. Jesus says in the gospel, If your hand, your feet, your eye bother you, they prevent you from becoming faithful Look, cut them off. Please don’t cut anything off. Except our sins. What sin do you and I have that’s entslaving us, that does not allow us to speak the truth, that does not allow us in our own way to rise up to ask for a better world. What is that sin?
And my friends, cut that out for you and for me. Jesus said in the gospel, You will always have the poor. And I always imagined to myself He was talking about the materially poor. But I wonder if He was not, in fact, reminding us that there’s another poverty that we will always have if we do not submit to the grace of the Holy spirit, ask for the courage to, one step at a time, become ever more faithful to what he’s asking, to be prophets in the modern world.
For the material poor need those who are spiritually rich to help them to find the dignity God to drive them, the solidarity that unites us as one family, and to allow them the opportunities you and I have to exercise their freedom for their own good and the good of their families. That is the world the Lord asks us to build. And we can. We can. If we leave this church committed to ask the question in the mirror, what part of my life is spiritually poor? And Lord, help it to be healed.
