Our Gospel today reminded me about the new evangelization that Pope Francis and Pope Benedict XVI have been proclaiming. This new evangelization is a plan to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world and particularly to those countries in the West that have been traditionally Christian for centuries, but perhaps have abandoned Christianity and the Gospel of Jesus Christ for secularism in recent years. This evangelization is to start with us, with educating and forming ourselves in the faith before we go out to evangelize others. In the Gospel today, Christ tells us that before we help others, we must first take care of ourselves. Before we proclaim the Gospel, we are to be true believers ourselves, to follow the true Gospel of Christ, to know what that Gospel really teaches.
Today, we celebrate two saints who share this feast day, two individuals who truly lived out the Gospel of Jesus Christ in their lives and who had a particular calling to bring that Gospel to others. Frédéric Ozanam was a student at the University of Paris in the early part of the 19th century. In France at that time, in the decades after the French revolution, many were abandoning the faith. Ozanam and his group of friends claimed to be practicing Catholics and disciples of Christ, but other students challenged them as to how the values of the Gospel were being lived out in their lives and making a different in the world. He and his fellow students started the Conference of Charity, which would later become the Society of St Vincent de Paul, which today is an international Catholic charitable organization that reaches out to so many people throughout the world. It was named after Vincent de Paul, a French priest who lived two centuries earlier, who had a particular love for the poor and the marginalized in society. You may have heard of the Ozanam Inn in New Orleans, which is run by the Society of St Vincent de Paul there; since the 1950s has provided outreach to the poor and homeless where they can spend the night or get something to eat or get a clean set of clothing. At St Richard Catholic Church, when I served there as the associate pastor, we started a Society of St Vincent de Paul that had a major impact in the community there.
While Frédéric Ozanam was a married Catholic lay person, Peter Claver was a Jesuit priest who arrived in the Spanish colony of Colombia in 1610. Rather than ministering to the colonists there, Claver reached out to the slaves who were brought there against their will. Peter Claver ministered to the sick slaves, bringing them food and drink. Before he died, after ministering to the slaves for more than 4 decades, Peter had brought more than 300,000 souls into the Catholic faith. He is a symbol of social justice and Catholic charity to us in the modern world.
Frédéric Ozanam and Peter Claver heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ and pondered its meaning in the reality of their world. May all of us hear the call that God has for us and respond accordingly.
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