Last week, I received a phone call from one Deacon Chuck Petersen, the "invisible deacon" here at St. Patrick's Church. Chuck called me last week in order to invite me to Silver Cross Baseball Field, where our own Joliet Jackhammers were playing their semi-pro brand of baseball on a given Friday night. Outside of Christmas and Easter, you don't normally see Deacon Chuck here at the parish because his work responsibilities occupy most of his Sundays and other days of the week. What Deacon Chuck does I very much admire and I very much would have a difficult time doing in my own life. Deacon Chuck serves our community as one of the chaplains at our State Prison here in Joliet.

Among his many responsibilities, this servant of God is called to offer one-on-one counseling, group activities for the prisoners and serves as a go-between for the prisoners and the outside world. Deacon Chuck also is responsible for coordinating the weekly Mass held as the prison, a Mass celebrated each week by either Fr. Ray Lescher (pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Joliet) or Fr. John Doyle (pastor of St. Anne's and St. Ambrose's Church in Crest Hill). At this Mass, any of the prisoners who wish to receive the sacrament are most welcomed and encouraged to attend. Fr. Lescher and Fr. Doyle often tend to draw large crowds to the services which they celebrate because of their dynamic personalities.

In the course of these weekly liturgies, sometimes Deacon Chuck laments over the intentions of one or two of the prisoners who might attend the Mass without good intentions. I guess that not everyone who attends the weekly Mass have the intention of receiving the grace of God during their difficult times. Sometimes, like in all venues in life, there might be other ulterior motives for individuals to invest themselves in going to Mass or engaging in one activity or another. It is during those times that Deacon Chuck flexes his "penitentiary muscles" and keeps the group in line. So goes the life of a prison chaplain.

For the sake of this homily, I was applying Deacon Chuck's sentiments to some of the same comments that might very well be made here at the Mass we are attending today. In fact, I would think that a judgmental person could apply the same line of thought to all facets of human activity. We could just as easily say in this room, "Mr. John over there has no business being at this Mass" or "Ms. Jane over there has no business receiving communion this week because she did this or that." All of us probably have made some type of judgments at one activity or another that we have attended, questioning whether certain individuals are worthy or capable of something in which they are participating. This is human nature. This is one result of a life immersed in the life outside of God.

Today's gospel reading is one of the most explicit texts for illustrating the types of individuals to whom our Lord wishes to minister and invest his life. Today's gospel also reflects the typical judgmental response that is often levied by all of us at one time or another. The story of St. Matthew's dinner, similar to the story found in the 19th Chapter of St. Luke's Gospel in the story of Zaccheaus, is just not a story of redemption but is also a basic theme involving Christian anthropology and ecclesiology. The key to our gospel today is that our Lord has come to minister to the sick. The key to our gospel today is that the Lord has come to minister to the sinners.

And with this in mind, the key to us finding salvation becomes very much two-fold. The first element in our salvation is the acknowledgement of our own sinful condition and the fact that without God, our lives our lost. We realize that when people judge us as sinners, these people are both right and wrong - they are right because we are sinners and they are wrong because they are just as unworthy of being at this Mass as we are. The second element in our salvation focuses on the fact that we need God to pull us from this sinful condition because we, on our own, woefully are inadequate to pull ourselves out of this sinful condition on our own. This perspective first was introduced in our readings today by the prophet Hosea and then was reinforced through the mouth of Christ - our salvation requires a great deal of mercy over that of sacrifice.

In reflecting on the extremely difficult work that Deacon Chuck has to endure in his ministry, I thought to myself that if Christ's incarnation took place in today's age, he would very much be spending a great deal of his time with the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, and the types of people described in the 25th Chapter of Matthew's Gospel:

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me… Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me. (Mt 25: 35-36, 40)

But as we know, Christ still is very much present in the homes of sinners today. He is very much present within us, the ones whom he commissions at every Mass "to go in peace to love and serve the world." It is through us that Christ reveals himself to the sinners of today's age. It is through us that the investment of salvation is made manifest.

Last week, our new school principal (Dr. Lonnie Hughes) echoed this type of sentiment when he wrote an advertisement for our local paper about our Catholic School. In the advertisement, Dr. Hughes wanted to capture the idea that our Catholic school has one extremely important part of faith that a public school cannot offer the kids, namely the life of faith. It is because of the manner in which we invest in the life of faith for these kids that they have a better chance of embracing God and allowing God to make a difference in their lives.

The catch phrase that Dr. Hughes used for this advertisement is the following: Sometimes people say, "Gee, I'd love to send my child to a Catholic school, but it's expensive." We say, "Can you afford not to?" For the sake of this homily, I apply the same theme to what we do today: When it comes to the matter of salvation, can we afford not to go to Mass? We are the sinners of today that come to our Lord looking for God's mercy. We are the sinners of today's age that could easily be judged by others for the sins we have committed but nevertheless are given the mercy and love of God because God wishes not to judge us but to love us when we turn to him. And when we receive this meal that he offers us at his banquet, we receive the strength to do unto others as our Lord has done to us. Today's reading from the ninth chapter of Matthew's gospel prepares us for what our Lord challenges us to do later on in the twenty-fifth chapter of the same gospel: to feed the hungry, to visit the sick, to console the sorrowful and to care for the imprisoned. For when we seek this mercy and share this mercy with others, we live like God and are one step closer to eternal salvation.

May we give thanks to God for dining with a congregation certainly unworthy of his presence but very much desiring to learn from his example.

And this is our prayer.