Do you know the story of the woman and the pot roast? Every time this woman would make a pot roast she would cut the end of it off before she put it in her pan. One day one of her kids asked her why she did this to the meat. “I really don’t know why,” she said, “That’s just how my mom did it.” That got her to thinking, so she called her mother to ask her.
“Well,” said her mother, “that’s an easy one to answer, “I cut it off because it wouldn’t fit into the pan.”
It’s easy for us humans to fall into a pattern or habit of doing or not doing something for all the wrong reasons. That includes the choice to live or not live our faith in the everyday world. We hear a compelling message from God’s Son Himself on Sunday. We gather at the Son’s table where His life is poured into us, and we’re told to go out and do the same for others.
How can we ever expect to find Christ without looking at each other?
For some reason, like that pot roast, our complete efforts never make it into our pan of real life commitment. That’s why it is so important to see our connection to the larger Church – the worldwide parish of every genuine believer.
Jesus didn’t say, “Think about me and others on Sunday.”
What he did say was, “Live in my love.”
What better way to connect to the larger Church than to love those far from us yet connected to us in our hearts and through His love? Everyone who contends they belong to Christ can’t help but have an innate sense of mission they carry with them in their hearts – for what is Christ about but inviting those near and far to walk with Him?
And what to make of a faith community that says they seek Christ, whose lives say otherwise? “These people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me,”’ He did say. That’s why Pope Francis is such a big hit with both those in and outside the Church, because we all know the difference between authentic love and token obligation. Walking by a brother or sister down on their luck and tossing them a coin, Francis reminds us, doesn’t constitute a real encounter with another, because how can we and they ever expect to find Christ without looking at each other?
Our world needs to recognize the great privilege and opportunity that participating in mission offers all who belong to Christ to love Him in the least of those among us. CARITAS’ Catholic child sponsorship programs offer a way to make mission personal. Sponsors can truly come to know the children whom they support. Participating with CARITAS For Children can offer faith communities the opportunity to have an impact on world mission, centered in Christ doing what He has declared imperative for every believer: Love one another as I have loved you.
We are God’s children now; what we shall be later has not yet come to light, John the Evangelist tell us. For now, it is enough to love a child of CARITAS and find Him in each other, walking together along the way to His everlasting love, for we are all His own. So let’s get real about how we eat and how we love.
