When you woke up this morning, something will happen in the Catholic Church that few people realize. The Church, on any given day, will take care of the health of more people, feed the hungry, clothe the cold, and educate more students than any other institution on earth.  The Church manages nearly 26% of the world’s healthcare facilities: 18,000 clinics, 16,000 homes for the elderly, 5,500 hospitals (65% of these are in the poorest countries).  On the school front, the scale is even more massive.  Worldwide, our Catholic schools number 43,800 secondary schools and 95,200 primary schools.  If the Catholic Church were to vanish tomorrow, can you imagine the tidal wave that would crash?  I give you these statistics not to boast or pat ourselves on our holy shoulders. Rather, I share this with you to help us appreciate the hard work and sacrifices that our fellow Catholic brothers and sisters spanning throughout the world are doing in the trenches.  Their faces are nameless, their sweat and tears go unnoticed.

           So often, we are portrayed as villains, vestiges of a bygone era.  Somehow, if the Church would simply shut its mouth and disappear from the public sphere, all would be at ease.  We cannot however, nor will we stop.  We have no choice in the matter if we want to add the noun “Christian” to our identity.  Jesus, our beloved master and savior commanded his followers to burst onto the world scene and bring his divine love to its four corners.  He told his disciples to manifest his physical presence.  People are meant to encounter the living and breathing Jesus Christ, through us, in us, empowered through His Holy Spirit.  We often ask, “Why did Jesus have to leave us?”  He did not: “I will be with you until the end of the age.” (See Matthew 28:20)

          If there is one constant theme that Jesus always returns too, it’s this: there is more to this world than we can imagine. He is always reminding us of our true destiny. We can easily fall into the trap that all that we see with our eyes is all that there is. We wake up, eat breakfast, go to work, make some money, come home, go to sleep and repeat. Our Gospel today gives us another perfect example of Jesus trying to open our eyes, which is the foundation of the entire Church’s charitable work. While speaking to the Pharisees, he gives us the story of the rich young man and the poor Lazarus. The young man has everything the world says you need. He has the money, the house, the prestige and the power that comes with wealth; he needs nothing else. Lazarus, on the other hand, is smelly scum. He’s the person we avoid, mock and jeer in disgust. Yet when the final judgment comes and our actions determine whether we go to Heaven or hell, we will finally see reality. Lazarus is truly rich, while the rich young man is the impoverished one.