BEAR ONE another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if any one thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. For each man will have to bear his own load. And let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. [Gal 6:2-5, 9-10]
 
Artist: Victor Luciano Rebuffo
(1903 - 1983)
Buenos Aires, Argentina

REVEREND RICHARD BARKER

LIKE DICKENS' memorable character Oliver Twist, who stands up in the refectory of a squalid 19th century orphanage, I lifted up the empty plate of my impoverished inner life:  Please God, I prayed, I want my life to have meaning. I was soon to discover that God graciously anointed me in my suffering. Happily, my abject condition itself merited God's grace: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." [Mt 5:3]

I UNDERSTAND now that the world would crush me were it not for Christ, an "eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions". [Deu 32:11] He entices my soul to abandon the fixed and familiar so that I might soar in the height and depth of God's love.

THIS IS why we care so much for people who, bowed down emotionally and spiritually, are weary of life itself. We see our own human frailty mirrored in their faces and we, like the weak and helpless, are learning degree by degree to behold the glory of the Lord in one another. [cf. 2Cor 3:18] For it was the Holy Face of Our Lord which gazed upon us with compassion and rescued us.

[Rev. Richard Barker, Rest in His Love, Homily, Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A]