“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink…“
Matthew 25
Matthew 25 is a wonderful place to start our Lent journey because of its loving vision of care for others. Jesus’ words have such power to them because in a few simple sentences, he gives us our marching orders as Christians. How are we to live? By feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, caring for the sick and visiting those in prison.
Are we squirming yet? I am. I can look at the list, a list given to me by Jesus and know I am falling short. I give money to various programs to help the poor and I send cards to those who are sick. But am I really caring for them in a deeply personal way? Does my busy-ness or my fear keep me at a distance? Closing that distance is exactly what Jesus offer us in Matthew 25.
This gospel is quite personal for Jesus as he identifies with the poor and marginalized. He doesn’t say they were hungry or they were sick or unwelcome. He says, I was hungry, naked, unwelcome and in prison. Jesus fully identifies with those who are hungry and on the margins. It gives us a message of humility as well as care and as Fr. Greg Boyle, S.J. has said the message of this Gospel leads to a place of personal connection with the poor. “Humility is that downward mobility and it leads to a place of solidarity with the poor and the outcasts. There is no distance, it’s a one-ness.” He adds that it’s a humility that never wants to have any distance between Jesus and the poor. Those of us who want to put a distance between ourselves and the struggling might say, ‘He was in jail and you visited him.’
But those are not the words Jesus gives us. She was not a stranger and someone else welcomed her. He was not imprisoned or sick and other people visited.
Jesus is clear and I’m not sure I want to read it exactly as he said it: I was hungry and you gave me to eat. I was ill and you cared for me.
Dear Jesus, give me the courage to follow you more closely this Lent. Let the weeks ahead be focused on those who need my food, healing and welcome. Let me love you by loving those you put in my path each day who need my help. Let me not hide behind the distance I want to put between those on the margins and myself.
Maureen McCann Waldron
The most important part of my life is my family – Jim my husband of 47 years and our two children. Our daughter Katy, a banker here in Omaha, and her husband John, have three wonderful children: Charlotte, Daniel and Elizabeth Grace. Our son Jack and his wife, Ellie, have added to our joy with their sons, Peter and Joseph.
I think family life is an incredible way to find God, even in (or maybe I should say, especially in) the most frustrating or mundane moments.
I am a native of the East Coast after graduating in 1971 from Archbishop John Carroll High School in suburban Philadelphia. I graduated from Creighton University in 1975 with a degree in Journalism and spent most of the next 20 years in corporate public relations in Omaha. I returned to Creighton in the 1990s and completed a master’s degree in Christian Spirituality in 1998.
As our children were growing up, my favorite times were always family dinners at home when the four of us would talk about our days. But now that our kids are gone from home, my husband and I have rediscovered how nice it is to have a quiet dinner together. I also have a special place in my heart for family vacations when the kids were little and four of us were away from home together. It’s a joy to be with my growing family.
Writing a Daily Reflection is always a graced moment, because only with God’s help could I ever write one. I know my own life is hectic, disjointed and imperfect and I know most of us have lives like that. I usually write from that point of view and I always seem to find some sentence, some word in the readings that speaks right to me, in all of my imperfection. I hope that whatever I write is in some way supportive of others.
It’s an incredibly humbling experience to hear from someone who was touched by something I wrote. Whether the note is from someone across campus or across the world, it makes me realize how connected we are all in our longing to grow closer to God.
