The Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time
2Kings 4: 8-11, 14-16A; Romans 6: 3-4, 8-11; Matthew 10:37-42
There is a story of a little girl, who much like other Catholic children her age, grew up in a Catholic home, learning from her parents her prayers and devotions. Remarkably, at a young age, she understood that a Catholic is called to be in a loving relationship with a God and that the goal of life is to become holy, to become a saint.
In her religion classes, when she would hear the stories of the great saints in the history of the Church and heard of all the great deeds they accomplished, she would feel discouraged as she recognized her own simplicity and smallness in comparison to them. She wondered why God seemed to have preferences and why there were certain people that he would give tremendous graces to do great things and others he wouldn’t. She longed to become a saint, but when she looked within herself, she realized that she was not destined to do great deeds in the world. In fact, her desire, from a very early age, was not to be in the world, but to be apart from it. She longed to dedicate her life to God as a cloistered nun.
One day a few years later, while praying in the garden of the convent she had joined, still trying to understand why God seemed to gift some with everything they would need to do great things for him and in his name, and others not, she suddenly realized that, in the garden, there were huge, tremendous, brilliant flowers like roses, like sunflowers, like lilies. But then she also noticed that the garden also had daisies, violets, and wildflowers. And that, for the garden to be beautiful, all of these were necessary. She then understood why God has these preferences - why he gives his graces to become saints in different ways to different people – that there are moments he desires the beauty of the rose or the lily in all its grandeur, and there are moments where he desires a simple daisy or violet with their wonderful fragrances. In that moment, she decided she was content to be the little flower in the garden of God’s creation.
If she was to live her life living in the ordinary, then she would allow the ordinary to be the deeds she would perform to become a saint. And so, the small, ordinary, routine, seemingly insignificant, perhaps boring, perhaps even annoying activities in her life she would do willingly, enthusiastically and lovingly. They would become the deeds she would do for God and in his name.
This young nun died at the age of twenty-four and it was only twenty-seven years later that she was canonized a saint. It is said that she is the only saint to ever stop traffic on Fifth Avenue in New York. Traffic came to a complete standstill in 1999 as devotees of this saint converged on St. Patrick’s Cathedral to view the relics of she who is often recognized as the greatest and most loved saint of our time. In case you haven’t realized it by now, I’ve been speaking of our patroness, St. Therese.
I thought of St. Therese this week as I meditated on today’s gospel and as one line jumped out at me. It’s the last line of this very brief passage: “And whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because the little one is a disciple, amen, I say to you, he will truly not lose his reward."
What a little thing, don’t you think, to give a cup of cold water? Do Jesus words surprise you? They did me. Perhaps it’s a cultural thing. Here in the United States, we’re used to super-sizing everything – the “Big Mac,” the “Big Gulp,” the “Whopper.” Our mentality is “Bigger is better” - big houses, big cars, big salaries, big accomplishments. But if you look through the gospels, it seems that to Jesus, it’s the little things that mean a lot.
In Scripture we read of the boy who gave Jesus his five loaves and two fish which were which were multiplied to feed five thousand . . . The widow who donated the two small coins to the Temple treasury, yet who, in d0ing something small, has encouraged others to give in sacrificial abundance for two millennia . . . The man who gave Jesus his donkey for his entry into Jerusalem . . . The two disciples who prepared the upper room for the Last Supper. . . Joseph of Arimathea who claimed Jesus’ crucified body and gave him his own burial tomb - the last act of kindness given to Jesus in his earthly life. . . The individual who brought the imprisoned Paul a pen and paper with which he wrote the letter to the Romans . . . Timothy, who brought Paul his cloak to keep him warm and books to keep him spiritually nourished. Little things mean a lot.
We often imagine discipleship as requiring huge sacrifice or entailing great feats, and sometimes that is exactly what discipleship comes to. But discipleship doesn’t have to be heroic. God loves to bless the little things his people do. Sometimes they are small acts, and sometimes they only appear to be so. Jesus cares deeply about the little things that his people do to bless others. He takes note of them. He uses them to carry on his work in the world through his church. Our cups of cold water, hugs, helping hands, and listening ears, anything done in faith and love, has cosmic significance for the ones involved and, indeed, for the world God loves so much.
What cups of water have you been offering lately? The phone call, face time, text or email to ask how a family member, neighbor or parishioner was doing during lockdown? . . . The knock on the front door of elderly neighbor to see if they needed anything from ShopRite? . . . The patience you showed as you struggled to be, not only be mom or dad 24/7, but also teacher and playmate? . . . The ear you used to listen to someone who just needed to talk? . . . The shoulder you offered for someone who needed to cry? . . . The words of comfort and reassurance you offered to calm someone’s worries or fears? . . . The rosary you said for someone afflicted with the coronavirus or for someone who had to deal with loneliness these months because they live alone? . . . The note of thanks you wrote to our priests or a priest in another parish who spiritually fed you through their livestreamed masses? . . . The donation you gave to help someone out who hasn’t received a paycheck for three months? . . . Cups of cold water.
Jesus has promised to come in time to redeem all in love, to fix all damage, heal all hurts, and wipe the tears from every eye, but we can in the meantime devote ourselves to acts of mercy and deeds of compassion small and large, not trying to save the world - Jesus has promised to do that - but simply trying to care for the little corner of the world in which we have been placed. And so even a cup of cold water can make a huge and unexpected difference to those to whom we give it. And, according to Jesus, such acts have eternal and cosmic consequences. Each and every act of mercy rings through the eons and across the universe imbued with Christ’s love for the world, a love we can share anytime and anywhere with gestures that may seem small in the eyes of the world but loom large in the life of those who witness them.
And if we follow the example of St. Therese, our patroness, then we will begin to see the endless opportunities to serve God in all that we do in the little things. And before long, those opportunities will become, not random acts of kindness, but our way of life . . . the life of a saint.
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