The following is Bishop Caggiano’s homily for the fourth Sunday of Lent, given at St. Augustine Cathedral in Bridgeport.
My dear friends,
I was 23 years old, settling into my new job as the sales representative for the Greg division of the McGraw Hill Book company. And when I was not on the road, right, traveling with customers, I would go down to headquarters on 6th Avenue in Manhattan and by train, and I would take the F train. And many of you perhaps have been to the station, 47th and 50th Street, Rockefell Center. And it is a sprawling station.
And in those days, as is coming true today, it was the home for many homeless people. And I noticed after a few weeks that the same homeless young man, young, was always in the same spot asking for money. And I had made a resolution that every time I saw him, I would give him a dollar. So you could imagine, I would lean over and give him the dollar. And I was proud of myself, to be perfectly honest, that I was doing charity.
I thought to myself, if everyone did that for this young man, he could lift himself out of poverty and restore his life. I thought I was being generous. I thought I was being merciful.
42 years have passed since that time. What I’ve come to realize, my friends, is that perhaps that was kind, perhaps that was generous, but it was not merciful. For mercy that comes from our Father. The mercy He asks us to share with one another is much more than $1 a day.
What is the mercy of God that St. Paul speaks to the people of Ephesus? What is it that you and I ought to share with one another and all of those whom we meet out there? It is very hard to define. You know it when you see it, at least when you’re wise enough to see it.
But this much is true. Pope Francis has been challenging us, both the priests and deacons of the church and perhaps all the faithful. In this very famous phrase, he has said over and over again, to smell like the sheep. My friends, have you ever considered that a shepherd can only smell, truly smell, like his sheep by picking them up and literally carrying them in his hands so that their wool and the oils in the wool rub off on his own clothes. Can’t be done from afar.
It can’t be done by just feeding them from afar. You literally have to embrace them to smell like them. And perhaps that’s the clue. For when I look back, those 40 some odd years ago, I never once asked the young man what his name was. To my shame and embarrassment, I did not once even speak to him.
I did not once ask or inquire why he was homeless. What was that drove him to this point in his life? So young in his life, I was just satisfied to give him a dollar. But you see, mercy is love that goes deeper, love that asks those questions, love that embraces someone in their point of suffering or pain, or when they need forgiveness and literally lifts them up. See, that is what God has done for us, each of us, in our poverty, in our suffering, in our sinfulness.
He has reached down, literally and touched our lives and lifts up so that whatever moment of our life we know, God is there to love us and to care for us and to lead us to glory, even if that glory is not clear in this life. Our destiny is eternal love in Him. See, that is mercy. And, my dear friends, that is what the Lord asks us to give to each other and to all whom we meet. And that is the beginning of the problem.
And if I may put it so bluntly, what I did 40 some odd years ago, and sadly, perhaps have done at different times in my life, chances are, perhaps you have done the same thing, or you and I have decided that there’s a class of people, an individual or a group of individuals, that are simply not worth more than simply $1.
But allow me to ask you this question. God would not treat those people, that person, that way. St. Paul says to the people of Ephesus that he came not to condemn the world, but to save the world, to invite every child of God to recognize the mercy of Christ so that their sins might be forgiven and they may have new life. So if it’s good enough for God, for you and me.
So it seems to me on this fourth Sunday of Lent that perhaps instead of looking forward, perhaps in this middle point of Lent, that we can look back. Perhaps we could look at our lives as I’ve begun to do in my own, and ask yourself the question, when have I risen to the challenge to truly be merciful? That is, to invest myself in the life of someone else who is in desperate need or lost or lonely or looking for purpose or looking for forgiveness or simply looking for a hand to hold on to. Have I done that? And in the past?
If we have not, then we have something to bring to our own heavenly Father to ask for his mercy and forgiveness and to learn the lesson as we move forward in discipleship.
If you recall, years ago, Congress passed a bill. It was about education. And the name of it is no child left behind.
You see, my friends, that defines how wide and deep God’s mercy is for all His children. All his children, every child, every person who lives on this earth. Christ has come so that no child may be left behind once again. If it’s good enough for Christ, why would it not be good enough for me and you.
