Dcn. Perry's Homily: Sept. 28, 2025

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Yr. C

Truly Seeing Others

Some of you may remember a man named Pat Millea who was on the parish staff some 10 years ago. He is now a youth leader in Minnesota; he has come here and has spoken twice in the seven years that I've been here. In the most recent appearance regarding suicide awareness, he told the story of when he had a large gathering of teens and noticed one person in particular who wasn't engaged at all. This young lady just came into the session and didn’t look at or talk to anyone, and then at the end of the session she just left without saying anything to anyone. She didn’t feel seen. Pat then asked a good student who was popular and a football player to say hi to this person sometime soon, perhaps at school. This football player did more than just say hi the following week. He asked the young lady to sit with him and his friends at his lunch table. The next time the youth group gathered this once very seemingly lonely girl was energetic and engaged. Earlier, she had been seen, but not in the fullest sense of the word. There's a difference between seeing someone and just seeing someone - the same word, truly different meanings. One is surface level and the other reaches the soul, and stirs us interiorly.

The rich man in our gospel saw Lazarus, in the more passive sense. He knew his name, he knew he was lying at his door with soars. And perhaps the most pitiable description of this scene was that the dogs would sometimes come to lick his sores. How was the rich man not remotely moved to see Lazarus in the more righteous sense of the word?

The situation is not very different in the prophet Amos who is speaking to Isreal some 800 years before the time of Jesus. He calls out the complacency in Zion, as they lie on beds of ivory and stretch out comfortably on their couches, drinking wine from bowls and anointing themselves with the best oils. No attention is being paid to God. They are living only for themselves.

This is clearly not how the Lord wants us to live. The readings today challenge us to take an honest look at our lives and reflect on how easily we can become self-absorbed.
Now maybe some of us don't actually feel all that gifted. Maybe it's financial, maybe it's an emotional struggle for a number of reasons, perhaps some of our family members are not living a Sacramental life and are falling away from the Church, or are not very holy or are misguided. For those of us suffering in those ways, we could probably do a better job to seek out others who are in the same boat, so to speak, or seek professional counseling. It takes humility to admit that our lives are not perfect. If we seek the help that we need, we might be able to more joyfully assist others in need. When we seek the help we need, our hearts are freed to serve others with greater joy. At times, turning our attention to those around us not only allows us to help them, but also opens us to the consolation Jesus longs to give us when we step outside ourselves to help others.

We should also note that not seeing those in need comes with consequences. In the case of the reading from Amos, the Israelites, due to their complacency and living only for themselves, they were driven into exile. And we heard about the rich man’s torment, whose name, by the way, we never learn. That might be Jesus’ way of allowing us to insert our own name into that parable about the rich man who deserves torment for his self-centeredness. We know the name of the poor man, which might be a hint Jesus surely sees and knows the poor.

We were made to be in community and to desire the good of others and to truly see them in their time of need. This means paying attention not only to their struggles, but also to whatever keeps us from looking beyond ourselves and toward Jesus who is present in the needy. As Paul reminds us in today’s second reading, no human being has seen or can see God. Yet in a very real way we can see Jesus in those who are in need, and we can bring His love to them through our own loving care for them, stepping outside of ourselves.