6 November 2017
Monday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time
Perhaps there is no greater presence of social land mines than the dinner party or the fund raising event in which people need to be seated at tables numbered from 1-100. Oh the agony that goes into deciding who sits at the table numbered with single digits, who sits below freezing (below table 32) or where you put people like myself who usually end up at body temperature, around table 98, seated with the photographer’s spouse and an older Jesuit whose fond memories stop around 1987. Jesus reminds us in today’s gospel that at least on some occasions we need to mix it up with some people that normally would not even be invited into the room. It would be remiss of me to ridicule the fund raiser or the benefit auction. After all, Catholic education and various Catholic institutions need money and it would be likewise remiss of me not to remember the great kindnesses shown to our institutions by so many people who make tremendous financial sacrifices to promote education and health care. Today’s gospel reminds us that among our many kinds of works, we need to spend some time, just time, with the simple, the confused, the ignorant, and the poorly dressed.