26th Sunday
Cathedral of Mary Our Queen
September 27, 2025
At My Doorstep
Jesus once said, “The poor you will always have with you” (Mt 26:11). That saying of his is fulfilled abundantly on the street where I live. The alley between the Basilica of the Assumption & My Sisters Place is strewn with the belongings of homeless women who sleep there in all kinds of weather. Often, the homeless spend the night on my front steps. Many of the people who call the streets of Baltimore home are out of work, addicted to drugs, and suffering from mental illness. For me, the story of Lazarus and the rich man is not merely a story. It is a stark reality, staring me in the face almost every day.
It’s not that there aren’t resources. Thanks to Catholic Charities, there’s My Sister’s Place, Our Daily Bread, as well as social services counseling. Yet, the poor are always with us – and to many people they are nameless and faceless, to be feared and avoided. This is the temptation I face, and somehow, with the help of God’s grace, I must surmount it.
The rich man’s sin was that he lived very comfortably, while ignoring Lazarus, the poor man at his doorstep. But with a little reflection, we can find in Jesus’ parable the root of the rich man’s distain for Lazarus. The rich man valued illusory wealth. He enjoyed the good things of life. His love of the good life blinded him to the poor man at his gate. By contrast, Lazarus, poor as he was, was rich in spiritual wealth. He wound up in the bosom of Abraham while the rich man wound up in a place of torment. But some might object: Aren’t the homeless and the drug-addicted responsible for their own plight? Is poverty itself proof-positive of holiness and/or spiritual wealth?
Choosing Spiritual Riches
Among many others, Pope St. Leo the Great (in the 5th century) taught that poverty itself does not make one virtuous. It does not necessarily help a person to long for the true wealth of holiness and friendship with God. For that to happen in any of our lives – whether we are rich or poor – something has to happen in our souls, and someone has to be God’s agent, his emissary, to make it happen.
Where I live, it is four young religious sisters who make it happen. They are the Sisters Poor of Jesus Christ, my next door neighbors. They are women of prayer. They take vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience. Imitating the Lord’s own style of life, they live very simply, with no luxuries or creature comforts. Unlike the rich man in the Gospel, they have distinguished between illusory wealth and real wealth. They have chosen true wealth of following Jesus Christ and loving the poor.
Because of their intimacy with the Lord, they clearly see the God-given dignity of the homeless, the hungry, the addicted, and the troubled. The sisters love the poor. They know their names. They know their histories. They listen to their stories. They provide simple necessities, such as socks and water, as well as lunch every Saturday at the Basilica. As they win the confidence of the homeless and the troubled, they invite them to open their hearts to God’s love, to Jesus, and to the Church.
Not everyone accepts the sisters’ invitation but many do indeed discover that they are truly loved by God, and some find their way into Sunday and weekday Masses. Thanks to the ministry of the Sisters, Poor of Jesus Christ, the severity of the streets meets the gentleness of grace. Thanks to their example and leadership, many others who are blessed with an abundance of this world’s goods make friends with those who have little or nothing.
The Upshot
Not all of us are called to live like the Sisters, Poor of Jesus Christ. But all of us are called to know and love the poor, not as objects of pity but as brothers and sisters in Christ. This can take many forms. For example, families here at the Cathedral provide casseroles for Our Daily Bread; some volunteer to serve lunch there; and others volunteer at the Franciscan Center. Still others volunteer to visit the sick in hospitals or at home, bringing Holy Communion, and a word of care and cheer. Still others help deserving young people from underserved neighborhoods to enroll in our Catholic community schools in Baltimore, and some also go to those schools to tutor our young people. Even if we find that such direct ministry is not possible, for whatever reason, we can always share our resources, and unite ourselves to those in need in our prayers to Jesus, who, for our sake, became poor, so we might become rich in the things of God.
In today’s second reading, Paul urges us, as he urged Timothy, to pursue “righteousness, devotion, faith, love, patience, and gentleness.” He further urges us, as he urged Timothy, to “compete well for the faith.” Here, Paul not only urges to know the difference between the false wealth of this world and true wealth of God’s love, he also serves notice that choosing true wealth involves a struggle, a competition, against our personal desires and preferences, a competition against our fallen nature. The rich man in the Gospel lost the battle. So much does the Lord love us, that he wants us to win the battle, so that one day we might dwell with him, “the King of kings and the Lord of lords” in the dazzling light of the Kingdom where he lives and reigns with Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever. Amen.