Our Gospel today reminded me about the new evangelization that popes like Pope Francis. Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope John Paul II have been encouraging. 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 Christ’s Gospel for secularism in recent years. This evangelization is to start with us: educating and forming ourselves in the faith before we go out to evangelize others. In today’s Gospel, Jesus 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, to know what that Gospel really teaches.
Today, we celebrate two saints who share this feast day. They both truly lived out the Gospel in their lives and had a particular calling to bring that Gospel to others. Frédéric Ozanam was a student at the University of Paris in the early 19th century. In the decades after the French revolution, many in France were abandoning the faith. Ozanam and his friends claimed to be practicing Catholics, but other students challenged them as to how the Gospel was being lived out in their lives and making a difference in the world. Ozanam and his friends started the Conference of Charity, which later became the Society of St Vincent de Paul, an international Catholic charitable organization that reaches out to so many people throughout the world even today. 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 outcasts. In New Orleans, Ozanam Inn is run by the Society of St Vincent de Paul there; since the 1950s, it has provided outreach to the homeless where they can spend the night or get something to eat or get a clean set of clothing. At St Richard parish, 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 man, Peter Claver was a Jesuit priest who arrived in the Spanish colony of Colombia in 1610. Claver ministered to the slaves who were brought there against their will. He tended to the sick slaves, bringing them food and drink. Before he died, after four decades of ministry in Colombia, Claver had baptized more than 300,000 souls. He is a symbol of social justice and Catholic charity 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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