Homily for Wednesday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Mass for Catholic Charities Fort Worth

August 9, 2023
Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church
Fort Worth, Texas

Numbers 13:1-2, 25-14:1, 26a-29a, 34-35
Psalm 106:4a, 6-7, 13-14, 21-23
Matthew 15:21-28

Our first reading speaks of how the Lord sent representatives from among His chosen people to reconnoiter the Promised Land before they were to begin their moving into their Promised Land. This story from the Book of Numbers offers us three points for our reflection as we ask God’s blessing upon Catholic Charities Fort Worth and its renewed leadership of its mission: Reconnoitering, Hope, and Gratitude.

Reconnoiter. I had to look this word up to know what it means.It sounds like a word that someone my age might hear from a physician — “don’t worry it’s a simple outpatient reconnoitering.” Yet, the word means “to research and to gather data for the purpose of forming an effective strategy for a successful campaign against an enemy.” This is very much an example for our approach at Catholic Charities Fort Worth as we research our approaches and programs for eradicating oppressive poverty, the bitter fruit of sin, and in that way an enemy of God’s saving plan for all of His children.

In our first reading we hear of how the Lord sends delegates from the Chosen People to reconnoiter the promised land before they advance. The Land is His gift but the Lord desires that His Chosen People partner with Him through the Covenant — not simply be passive recipients. They are to use their intelligence and their judgment which God gave them too. To reconnoiter means that they are to do their research and to strategize for they will encounter those who desire to frustrate God’s plan for the salvation of the world.

It is important to note that the reading explicitly states that the Lord sends the “princes” as the leaders to gather the required research at ground level. The leaders are to be servants and to recognize that they are to share in the risk that they will lead others in taking. God’s partnership with His People never involves the assuming of an aloof or distant perspective. This too is exemplified by everyone involved in leadership at Catholic Charities Fort Worth. It is exemplified by the personal partnership that is forged between Catholic Charities agents and our clients in what is classified as case management.  

Hope. Yet, we see in this reading from the Book of Numbers that the reconnoitering of the Promised Land provides data that suggests at face value that the completion of God’s plan is too overwhelming and too gigantic for them to carry out. The data given and taken on its own terms leads them to discouragement, and some abandon their part in the Lord’s mission of salvation. Malaise sets in among the community.

We too at Catholic Charities Fort Worth can become discouraged when we take the data we receive in our research only on its own terms, and we see only the momentous and gigantic problem of poverty in all its ugliness. We are tempted to think that the mission faces insurmountable problems, and we will never be successful. We can come to think that it is pointless and futile given the complex threats of generational poverty, the burden of a broken immigration system, the false promises of payday lending, the scourge of violence both domestic and societal, the dangers for abandoned women and children, and the cloaked imminence of human trafficking to name but only a few. There are also so many voices that repeat the desperate untruth that the problem is too gigantic for us to solve. Yet, it’s at this time when God gives us hope as only God can give us hope and courage in the face of discouragement. He encourages us through prayer. Discouragement never comes from God. When we feel discouraged that is precisely the time for us to turn to God in prayer.

One of the chief effects of poverty is to convince us that God does not exist, and if He did exist, He simply does not care. Prayer enables us to see reality in the fullness of the Truth, and the flourishing of human beings in society as God intends. Without prayer, we cannot come to know that it is God who not only exists, but also that He loves us and establishes a partnership, a Covenant with us, an uneven partnership to be sure, but one that has been sealed with love and not simply a transactional agreement — sealed by the life, death, Resurrection, and Ascension of His own Son. God loves us. God. Not the Catholic god; not the Muslim god, not the Jewish god, not even the Atheist’s god — but the one and true God, the God of everybody who has created and redeemed us from sin and all its evil effects including poverty.

Gratitude. The gift of gratitude that God offers us when we pray changes everything. Gratitude clarifies our relationship with God especially in connection with our share in the saving mission of eradicating poverty. It is this gratitude that enables us to see the poor not as a problem but as fellow human beings, each with a story and with family and friends no matter how severely each of those might have been harmed by poverty and its complications. Gratitude saves us from forgetting what God has already done for each of us and for our organization and especially for the many who have been saved from poverty by being enabled and empowered as partners with God in the new and eternal Covenant. Our gratitude is that God has shared this aspect of His saving mission for God’s People with us. What a blessing! What a privilege! What a joy!

Gratitude has three parts: acknowledging the gift as gift, not entitlement; accepting the gift as gift by using the gift; and enjoying the gift for that is why God has given us the gift. Our work at CCFW is a gift from God and we can forget that from time to time — Christ present in our clients and the people whom we meet remind us that this is God’s gift for us to enjoy. It is then we can accept the gift in them with gratitude. We also can enjoy the ministry and service we do as an essential part of this gratitude that is the fruit of our hope.

Reconnoitering. Hope. Gratitude. These are the gifts that God gives His people today with us and through our partnership with Him as servants and clients of Catholic Charities Fort Worth. This is why we pray today and why we thank Him for His generosity and love.