Hello my name is Father bonfice I’m a benedic and priest and monk of St Vincent Arch ABI in L trro Pennsylvania and it’s a great pleasure to talk today with Father Jonathan St Andre to Franciscan frier from the Sacred Heart Province and their novice master in
Loretto he joins me today as we discuss Pope francis’s Wednesday audience from May 18th as he continues his catecheses on mercy and he’s working through various gospel passages in in the New Testament and he comes to Luke 16: 19-31 the rich man in Lazarus we heard the holy father’s catechesis in the first
Part of our program and father Jonathan and I will be discussing it now for the remainder of the hour let me take a moment to greet our guest father Jonathan it’s great to be with you it’s great to be with you father bonfice before we enter into our
Conversation let us ask our lady to help us by her prayers may she call upon the holy spirit to inspire us and guide us and also be a lightning rod of the holy spirit for our listeners to attract God’s spirit into their hearts and help them to hear and receive the grace that
They need Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus holy Mary Mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death amen well father Jonathan as I mentioned
The Holy Father has been working through various catecheses on mercy and he came to this topic of poverty and mercy and draws from the New Testament presentation of the rich man in Lazarus any initial points that you wanted to bring out as we begin our conversation
Sure father bonfice I think I think that person personally this is always a convicting passage for me because I always think who am I missing right at my door I mean it’s one thing to recognize the hungers and the needs in the world and and that call to be an
Instrument of Mercy it’s another thing to realize that every day there are people all around us that we don’t have to go out of our way although we are called to do extraordinary things but just in the ordinary to look for that and the human tendency to apathy or the human tendency to
Overlook the person the people in front of us who need the Lord’s mercy and that’s really what the rich man did he at least overlooked at first the poor man at his gate you know and then eventually he had overlooked him so much that it wasn’t even a willful
Overlooking it was a it was just a part of the way he related so I think this is a very convicting passage that we really have to take to heart and take to prayer wow you just uh I I read through this trying to pick out some points and
Identify a few things but I was only feeling the discomfort of uh of the poor in the world and and your connection really helped me just now to say who is the one that’s close to meh that I’m overlooking that I’m missing and that just gave me a different Focus I’m
Always thinking about the people on the city streets or not too long ago was driving and saw a guy collecting a quite a large amount of money from the huge number of commuters coming out of Pittsburgh and felt a little bit of resentment like ah he’s making all this
Money on the side of the road and I don’t know if I want to contribute to this and start to think well was that Lazarus you know did I just go past that but you just zeroed me in on where I need to pay attention which is the
People who are right next to me that I’m seeing every day and then even you brought out another point it may be the people that we’ve walked past so many times we don’t notice them at all anymore that maybe it tweaked our conscience the first time the second
Time the third time the 10th time but now we don’t even notice and so to step back from our lives enough to see who is the one that I even stopped noticing and then I think ahead to what the Holy Father points out too that when I see
That one and I’m on the wrong side of the Divide I’ll recognize him then and I’ll say oh yeah I I know him he he lived close to me he lived in my Monastery with me he was you know someone that I worked with he was someone that I was
Was with it the college here at St Vincent am I going to then recognize that person conveniently when I need him but walk past him now and it’s just an inconvenience to me yeah I think it’s um the go gospel is applicable to every person and none of
Us have reached what it invites us to and so I think that as we hear this Parable that we’re being called to a deeper Mercy the Holy Father when he was in Kenya he visited the Ki slum which is right outside of uh the capital in uh Nairobi
And he just made this the flat statement Whenever there are very rich and very poor living next door to each other it is a scandal and I just really shot through to my heart it was so unmitigated this situation is a scandal and I thought why don’t we have this in
All of our cities aren’t there very rich and very poor living close together everywhere in in our country yeah the very poor are never far away and how much have we just marginalized them or written them off or closed our eyes to them closed our hearts to them so that we don’t notice
Anymore but really it’s a scandal there should not be starving people next to people who have super affluence yeah and even um I think in my own situation I live in a rural environment in Loretto and I’ve come to realize though how many people people how the poverty exists in rural
Areas and how I can be living in this nice house that we inherited and have three Square meals a day and and just down the street people are struggling and they’re not necessarily homeless but they live in homes that they struggle to heat in a very cold
Area in Pennsylvania and it it just it it really strikes me and some of them are trying to do heroic things like send their their kids to Catholic school and pay the tuition and and and they’re not necessarily abjectly poor where you notice it but they’re living that and
They’re not far away from me and um so I I just totally agree with what you’re saying and what Pope Francis said and I think that’s the beauty of Pope Francis sometimes he just names things in it in his own simple direct way where you feel
Like it kind of punched you but there’s so always loving it too you know and um yeah to have a slum next to people of Greater affluence is yeah there’s something not right there and uh there’s an invitation there for change and I love the way that Pope
Francis does what he can to overcome this in his area of influence he established a showers in the Vatican for the homeless and an Outreach for food he has a a Vatican aler who goes out and I think Pope Francis is quite envious of that aler who actually gets
To go out and distribute some alms to the poor and find some ways to to share the the gifts that the Vatican has itself received the that aler was asked one time does Pope Francis ever sneak out with you and he didn’t comment that makes one Wonder that’s
Right but it’s such a beautiful side of him that we can easily imagine him finding a way to sne Sak out and be able to have some immediate contact with the poor but he provides what he can through the Vatican as I said with showers with
Some uh he’s employed the homeless at at different Angelus addresses to distribute Bibles he he’s passed out a copy of the gospels to people and has indicated you know this the homeless who are helping out there’s a real connection with the homeless at the Vatican and then the what he’s done in
The one Parish that’s within the boundary of the Vatican he has worked with them to welcome refugees from the Middle East and then recently he just brought home 12 people with him from Greece on his Apostolic Journey three families they were they were there he was there their paperwork
Was all done he it was actually one of his officials that proposed the idea to him several weeks in advance and he said I heard it and that was right and I said yes please you know make the arrangements and so when he went over there they were prepared and he was able
To bring them back and entrust them to that Parish in the Vatican so in his own concrete and modest capacity and then using his authority as the Holy Father he challenged every Parish in Europe to take in a family of refugees they’ve received that in different ways but he’s
Used his authority that way to ask them and then also this recent collection for the Ukraine recognizing the poverty there asked every Parish in the Ukraine to have a special collection or every Parish in Europe to have a special collection for the Ukraine and so just very concretely paying attention to the
The whole world situation but then not overlooking the people in Rome or not overlooking his neighbors in Europe and yeah this gives us such a wonderful example that way so his outside his door includes the whole world but it’s also his episcopacy in Rome there and his
Papacy and in both those ways he’s reaching out to those at the door right absolutely mhm yeah what other points stood out to you father Jonathan as you as you’re reading through the Pope’s Wednesday audience I think what struck me was he speaks about to ignore the poor is to despise
God and what a strong statement that the rich man you know spoke to Abraham as he says begging him with the name of the father therefore he claims to be his son belonging to the people of God yet in life he showed no consideration toward God rather he made
Himself the center of everything closed up in his world of luxury and waste by excluding Lazarus he took no account of either the Lord or his law to ignore the poor is to despise God and that just struck me that if he claimed to be a Son of God to be part of
God’s Heritage but how can you be claim to be a Son of God and not accept your brother who is also a Son of God and and to accept that you are connected and you share in a universal fraternity A brotherhood and of course this is something that is dear to my heart
Because it was dear to Francis of AI he had this sense of Fraternity in the sense of the deep Brotherhood and Sisterhood of all creation and particularly those made in the image and likeness of God his brother manifested and incarnated the image of God before
Him and he loved the Lord so tenderly so deeply so sensitively that his very heart was touched when one of his brothers or one of his sisters were not receiving what was even due their dignity one thing I always sort of chuckle at is Francis would like give
Away everything he would that g gave to him they you give him a mantle to wear and he give it to the first poor person he saw and it would sort of started to annoy the brothers you know the other Friars they you know they were always
Trying to give him something else and then he would give it away but part of it was he just never he thought this isn’t my own it belongs to the one who needs it more and and I think that um that’s a beautiful mentality that’s a beautiful gospel mentality whether it’s
Spiritually or materially this isn’t my own belongs to the one who who needs it more when we clutch to things when we when we are overly secure we’re not considering who needs it and who can I share it with and who is my brother you
Know who who um unites me to Christ who is ultimately my in a sense Christ I’ve always seen one way of seeing Christ is as a brother an older brother leading us to the father and he would want us to care for all of our other brothers and sisters so beautiful illustration
Yeah yeah St Francis has so much to teach us and has been such an obvious explicit influence for for Pope Francis certainly for his teaching yes yeah I often say that uh I think if you named a Franciscan now to be Pope he wouldn’t be as Franciscan as Pope Francis the
Jesuit that’s so funny he’s amazing he is yeah he really is a like a living Reincarnation of St Francis he really is so many so many ways yeah yeah and I love uh just the extension of that and and very appropo to what the the story that you shared of
St Francis Pope Francis goes on to say that the poor are well in this case Lazarus is a living reminder to the rich man to remember God and as you said with St Francis seeing in his brother a remembrance of God he had so much love
For God and his brother was always a reminder to him of God and the one who was more poor was more of a reminder but a living reminder of God and and if that’s not the case for us then uh we need to sensitize ourselves more deeply
You prefaced Your Story by saying St Francis had such a tender love for God and if the poor are not a living reminder for God of God for us then we don’t have that Tender Love for God and we needed more tender love for God and that develops through reaching out to
The poor and discovering that there’s something beautiful there that we overlooked we were distracted by the surface appearance and it also comes from praying more deeply and praying from our own poverty yes Understanding God’s Tender Love For Us in our poverty helps us to tenderize our hearts and
Have a more tender love for him especially as he appears under the appearance of poverty mhm yeah and as you know in our recent conversations you know that’s something that the Lord has been leading me into is my own poverty and um I couldn’t help but think of that
In this passage too is I think that the rich man was really not in touch with his own poverty H you know you can have all the things in the world or all the power or Prestige but every one of us has a poverty every one of us by the fact that
We’re creatures has a poverty and some of us try to avoid that poverty some of us try to overcome it and I’m not necessarily even just talking about a material poverty but but but just that the poverty of being a human being and if we don’t come in touch with that but
Also as we’ve been talking about come in touch with the mercy that meets us in our poverty that meets us particularly in that poverty you know then then it’s very difficult for us to have compassion as you were saying to be capable of feeling compassion for for Lazarus because we don’t have compassion
On our own poverty or an awareness of our own poverty and I think if you had talked to that rich man I mean I don’t know but I don’t know if he was in touch with his own poverty yeah you know he may have been in touch
With I want to gain more or store up more or but to really be aware of that and to be able to respond from that and I I think perhaps you know that’s part of this connection of why the Holy Father says In this passage poverty and
Mercy because they are so connected you know and to see the poverty externally but to see the poverty in ourselves yeah and to let the Lord minister to that poverty and as he ministers to our own pover poverty we are filled with his love and mercy to minister to the
Poverty of others beautifully said yeah if I can build on that Insight that you proposed father Jonathan that the the rich man is not aware of his own poverty I would read that in the fact that he had Sumptuous Banquets every night that’s yeah yeah was he not able to be
Alone H what was he afraid of in silence what was he trying to cover up with food yeah what was he trying to overcome through entertainment and just different ways that we medicate ourselves that we numb ourselves to experiencing our own poverty if the rich man had sat alone in
His fine Mansion for a night would he have begun to think about Lazarus as he felt his own loneliness would he realized that there was a friend waiting outside for him but you know the Sumptuous Banquets every night the the entertainment the food the sensory stimul the the riches and gaining more riches
Or earning friends through his riches who could build up his own riches or all of these different things these are all these human defenses that we have to keep ourselves from facing our own poverty and the ultimate proof of what you said that we all have this poverty
We are creatures and if we think about the moment that all of us share a beginning and an end life in its beginning we are completely helpless and completely vulnerable as a zygote that we can’t survive on our own for months in fact after that years in
Fact after that but from the very beginning helpless at the very end of our life likewise we are helpless none of us takes death by storm all of us succumb to it fighting or willingly but we find ourselves helpless at the moment of our last breath we are unable to resist breathing our
Last that helplessness that bookends Our Lives also defines what happens throughout we don’t really have more than that in the middle except on loan God loans us all of our ability to stand to walk to breathe to think it’s proven by the fact that he gave it to us to
Begin with thus the beginning of our life and he can take it from us at the end thus the end of our life and it’s all on Loan in the middle and the more that we can be honest about that and acknowledge that and then reverence that
Gift and use it well but like you describe St Francis not claim it as our own as if we’ve earned it and we deserve it and we own it to the contrary it’s on loan so we should be able to give it freely our time our breath our our our
Thoughts our our wealth our our physical abilities our strengths we should be able to give them generous ly and then they find their real meaning not in what they can get for us but what they can be as a gift for others excellent points yeah and I think that um especially what
You’re saying about yeah masking or you know compensating through as the rich man did through his Sumptuous Banquets and we all do that we all at times try to pretend or medicate our way our own poverty but it’s the path it’s the path of the Gospel it’s the path of life and
It’s the path that led Lazarus to eternal life you know when things were sort of the tables are turned this is the journey that he was on yeah sometimes that um that sometimes that’s a little scary for me even I think of the Beatitudes you know or or I look at
My life and I think wow I I’ve had it pretty good actually you know and and uh Lord help me to always like you said appreciate that be grateful and share all of what I’ve been given to the best of my ability because so many don’t
And so many don’t have that choice on a material level on an emotional level on a spiritual level you know I I profess a vow of poverty and I try to live a simple life but there are so many poverties that I have not known but I
Can know them and those who do yeah and in the way hopefully that I serve them and love them as Christ would M well said yeah yeah and it blesses us to know that I I’ve had a chance a little bit more recently our our seminarians go weekly
To The Men’s Mission in downtown Latrobe and do a little bible study with the men have dinner with them and just getting to know people who are homeless and some of the struggles that they’ve been through and and some roughness in their character but there’s something so beautiful and transparent there as well
And a real strength on the one hand and and exposed in their own weaknesses their weaknesses are obvious enough they’re in a homeless shelter and so they can’t really hide that and helps them to be a little bit more honest about where some of the struggles are
But beautiful people but like you said we can come to know that kind of poverty by loving and serving those who know that kind of poverty and it’s so enriching for us to know that yeah absolutely absolutely I had a opportunity recently to meet a gentleman
Who was begging for money and food and um it was it was interesting for me because um I tried to offer him different things and he said no actually someone gave me lunch and no someone did this and and actually my daughter’s coming to pick me up and and I just went
Into the situation thinking what am I going to give or what’s going to be asked of me and I think the Lord blessed me because I I didn’t go to Just have some nice let me help someone today you know but I met him and learned his name
And talked with him and I really gave him nothing he gave me you know but God gave him that both of us that encounter and you’re right we we receive so much more than we give I wanted to revisit a point that you made a few moments ago father
Jonathan that coming to know our own poverty and becoming comfortable with that allowing the Lord’s Mercy to touch us there is so important for us and and I read that in this Parable we we have a sort of sequential presentation in the parable as if Lazarus just suffered during his whole
Lifetime and then finally he died and then God starts being nice to him but we have to we have to read that God hasn’t changed throughout this whole thing it’s kind of implicit and and you even were were bringing that out and if I can just Make That explicit in the context of
This Parable we have to know that God is taking care of Lazarus in his own way you know through some consolations preserving him in some way we don’t know all the details but Lazarus was already in the bosom of Abraham even at the doorstep of the rich man and then that
Reality just becomes manifest and obviously more realized and concrete in eternal life and in the afterlife but but that’s the way that God loves our our poverty even now he doesn’t just sort of neglect it till we die and then finally take care of it but already the
Way that he loves lazarus’s poverty which is fully revealed in the vision after death that’s the way that he loves our poverty even now holding us caring for us even protecting us and then giving the rich man the opportunity to be a face and a voice for God to make
Tangible to Incarnate the presence of God God is already holding Lazarus but he wants to share that opportunity with the rich man as well and the rich man misses that opportunity for his whole life and separates himself from God in the process in a way that becomes
Definitive even after his death yeah and that’s a tough one for me to be honest to get my mind around sometimes my spirit and when I think some okay well with the person who is really experiencing visible poverty visible deprivation now where is God in that and
When I myself experience that where is the Lord in that and I think I think if we’re all honest we struggle with that and we don’t want to just be like okay suffer now so that I’ll have joy and Bliss later like you’re saying but to
Believe that the Lord is really in that and that the Lord is sustaining us and to not run away from that and and I can’t say father Bona that I’m um far along on that you know I I tend to resist suffering I resist pain you know
Um and yet I think part of it is not being in control too but knowing that that the Lord is holding you and that the Lord is loving you in that struggle in in your poverty just as you are and surrendering and abandoning yourself to that you know abandoning
Yourself to the Lord’s love and to the Lord’s presence even when you’re not exactly sure how to embrace that poverty as I’m sure that Lazarus was you know it’s interesting he didn’t he he seemed to stay day after day in the same place you know and I wonder why didn’t
He get up and move on you know but this sense that somehow God was with him there that was his place he trusted he hoped and God was with him there recognizing that that struggle I wanted to justify even when I was saying that uh about God being with the poor
Even in this life and the immediate witnesses that come to mind are ones that Mother Teresa gives she picked up a man who was very badly I mean eaten by by worms and and abandon on the side of the road hardly recognizable as a as a person she gathered him up and cleaned
Him off and took him back and then was just uh pulling him warming him and he opened his eyes and said to her mother I have lived like an animal but now I die like an angel and she commented I learned so much from that because I don’t think I would have been
That way when I opened my eyes I would have said where have you been why did I have to lay there so long where was God through all of this why was I abandoned but you know that man was grateful just grateful and that’s where I see the work
Of God something’s going on in there in the in the suffering and surely there are phases of of anger and bitterness and self-pity and you know but then God also has a way of working Mother Teresa talked about another time she brought rice to a poor family and she brought
The rice to a mother who had several Starving Children and she said the star their starvation was visible you know their eyes sort of shining at in their their hunger and the mother took the plate of rice and immediately went next door and then came back with half the
Plate and mother said where did you go and she said that family is also hungry they have no food and so there’s an amazing way that God really does he is with the poor and and forms them and helps them and and he’s there in our poverty too that
Sometimes well this is part of how I think we we grow in faith to be able to say even though we don’t know how to connect with that Presence at least to say God is here I know that God became poor for me I know that he lives in
Poverty I know that he’s present in suffering I know that he’s United to the cross and United with me on the cross I know that’s the case now how do I find him and that opens up a different kind of exploration for us to meet him in our
Our poverty that we don’t do it with doubt out but we do it with faith and then we start to find him in different ways and start to connect different passages the grace takes hold and we receive the mercy but I think these kinds of Reflections are helpful for us
To have that have that faith those are beautiful examples of how people in their poverty the face of Christ can become so clear you know and um and sometimes that face of Christ is clear and sometimes it’s a little disfigure just as Christ was on the way to Calvary you know and
It’s all a part of humanity and what we struggle with but I benefit from hearing hearing that you know and being reminded of those examples of the the people around us even think the poverty of dying even if you’re not dying on the street just how a person dies yeah and
Being with someone who is dying and and just the the the Letting Go the trusting the offering oneself to the Lord can be a beautiful Testament to the presence of the Lord and can give us an encouragement in the trust and self-abandonment that we should have to the
Lord dying and and old age likewise yeah the poverty of letting go of our mental faculties our physical faculties and to see the grace with which people are able to do that is so beautiful we become kind of like you referred to Father bonfice you know we we become like
Children again and in some ways that in in many ways that’s so beautiful because we are called to be children of God yes and worked into the whole human life cycle is we we begin as children and we end as children the hardest part may be to be remain children throughout our
Life indeed you know to remember our our primary identity as a as a child of God yeah and and to live out of that poverty because there’s there’s joy there absolutely yeah even as we are entrusted with so much in the middle of our Lives
Still to know at the base of all of it we are children yeah very poor and with nothing to call our own just things on loan from the Lord right yeah it’s so beautiful Pope Francis challenges us a number of times in this audience one of
The things that stood out to me is he says how many times so many people pretend not to see the poor we talked about that a little bit already but it stands out to me and then just a little after that he says God’s mercy toward us
Is linked to our Mercy toward our neighbor when it this is lacking even when God’s mercy does not find a space in our closed hearts even God’s mercy does not find a place in our in our closed Hearts it cannot enter and and there’s a there’s a beautiful
Synergy there as we we open in Mercy and we’re able to receive more mercy and in receiving more Mercy we’re able to open and offer more Mercy it’s a continually growing uh spiraling upward cycle that we see also in the beatitude blessed are the merciful for Mercy shall be theirs
That in giving Mercy we are open to receiving more Mercy St Bernard actually says well it’s understand able that that beatitude follows after blessed are those who mourn mourning for our sins is the the the primary thrust of that mourning those who mourn for our sins are aware
Of our sinfulness then we say well how what can we do about this well be merciful and so we can give Mercy but we do it because we know we need to receive mercy and then as we receive Mercy we give Mercy anyway this whole continuous cycle of giving and receiving mercy and
There’s that beautiful ambiguity in the year of Mercy that we celebrate as well is it the year of receiving Mercy or is it the year of giving Mercy well yes and they go so closely together hand in hand yeah that’s a that’s a beautiful way to put it and a beautiful reminder
And um because I think Mercy was first given to us yes as you’ve reminded me at times and I’m grateful it was him who first loved us I think first John yeah and uh it was him who first gave Mercy to us and we never prede the Lord in
Mercy right I mean think about that that’s pretty amazing you know that he always precedes us and we think we oh I’ve you know I have a good idea of how to help someone or show Mercy well already the spirit has formed that in our hearts already the Lord has done
That so it’s like we receive we give we receive in the giving and we’re LED to receive more and it just builds it just Builds on they build on each other as you said that Synergy and I think it’s the opposite when we close our heart and
Don’t then we don’t receive Mercy we’re not led to show Mercy when we don’t show Mercy it’s harder for us to receive mercy and and um listen to the law of physics something gets going it’s going to keep going yeah and there’s a spiritual inertia to Mercy it there’s
This this movement of the spirit that is that is continuous that is Flowing you know and that we participate in if we’re open to it and inertia likewise a body at rest tends to stay at rest yes once we get stopped it takes some extra energy to get going again right right
Yeah and I love what you said you just inserted in there that in giving Mercy we receive mercy and I think that’s also an important point that there’s a way that in the giving itself we also experience that Mercy there’s a there’s a kind of tenderness that didn’t
Originate in us but that flows through us and and we get some of the residue of it as it flows through as I was proposing about Lazarus that God is already having Mercy on him but the rich man has the opportunity to step into
That flow of Grace and to be a hand and a face and a kind voice that Lazarus is able to perceive with his senses MH and by stepping into the Lord’s flow of Mercy the rich man also receives that Mercy that would have passed through him if he had done that absolutely
Absolutely and what a beautiful thing when that cycle begins and continues in our lives and so I think the year of Mercy as you’re saying is all of the above yes absolutely receiving sharing living in the mercy of God who has first given himself to
Us father Jonathan we are at the end of our time which I’m amazed about thank you for a a wonderful conversation oh it’s great to talk with you and great to talk with you about just beautiful writings uh beautiful meditations that our holy father is
Giving us and and as you pointed out at the beginning it that he’s modeling through the way he lives lives it could you offer a prayer and give us a blessing I’d be happy to Heavenly Father we just give you thanks and praise for this day you are
The Giver of all mercies the father of Mercy the font of Mercy you are the one who took our poverty you are the one who ennobled every poverty and made it a means to your mercy Lord we pray that as we continue to reflect upon this beautiful
Gospel that we would open our hearts to receiving and sharing Mercy with the Lazarus in our midst and the Lazarus whom we do not see all good all Mercy that we do comes from your inspiration and your grace and your blessing and I ask your blessing upon all those
Listening this day and upon my brother father bonfice and I pray that you would extend your blessing upon them all in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen amen father Jonathan thank you so much for talking with me about Pope francis’s Wednesday
Audience from May 18th on poverty and mercy it’s been great to talk to you great to be with you thank you
source
