Who is my neighbor?

Imagine a neighbor from your street came to you asking for your help to feed his or her family. Would you help?

Imagine a neighbor from a few streets away came to you in need of someone to talk to. Would you be there to listen and to help?

Imagine a neighbor from the next town over asked you for some help in the yard. Would you help this neighbor?

Who is my neighbor?

In a very direct way the Lord puts before us the true testament of love as He tells us that not just some but the whole law and the prophets, in other words our very life, depends upon the commandments to love God with our whole being and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Our ability to dedicate ourselves and love God with our whole hearts, souls, and minds, may come easy to us, for all we have to do is drop to our knees or drop into Merici Chapel for some time in Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. But to love our neighbor as ourselves can challenge us. In this call to love we must go beyond ourselves, at times beyond our comfort zones, we must let our walls fall down and see things we’d rather not see, and recognize and respond to the needs of others on and beyond the corner of our street.

Four years ago I had an experience that helped me to gain a deeper realization of what it means to love my neighbor as myself. In June of 2007 I joined the CRS (Catholic Relief Services) Global Fellows program. Global Fellows is a program that trains priests and deacons to share the story and the way to new life for our neighbors around the world. After receiving training at Catholic Relief Services headquarters in Baltimore, I boarded a plane bound for Cambodia. Cambodia, is a nation of about 14.5 million people and the size of the state of Missouri that is struggling with poverty and illness due to years of civil unrest and dictatorship and yet a country whose future is bright and rich in possibility and potential.

One day after traveling by jeep through bumpy dusty dirt roads which seemed to take forever, I encountered a health initiative project that trains volunteers from local villages to diagnose and treat tuberculosis and other illnesses. Because of this training many people who would otherwise die of disease are treated and survive and communities are strengthened. Also, I remember clearly one of the local health care volunteers saying that because of the training she received and what she now can do for her village that she sees her own self worth, she has experienced new purpose and meaning, she has a new life.

I am grateful to Catholic Relief Services because of not only what it taught me but what Catholic Relief Services does for our neighbors around the world. For us Catholics in the United States, Catholic Relief Services is our main outreach to those in need across the globe. CRS provides immediate aid in times of need, for example the earthquake in Haiti or most recently the famine in East Africa; but also the CRS difference is that it also helps people in the areas of healthcare, farming and food security, community building, fair trade, obtaining fair loans, advocacy for the poor, and many other areas that help our neighbors in this world to live to their fullest potential, which is something we all hope and long for and do our best to fulfill.

My time in Cambodia showed me, and demonstrates for all of us, what is possible when we challenge ourselves to open our eyes, recognize and respond to the needs of our neighbors both across our street and across the world.

This week may we challenge ourselves to recognize and love our neighbor as God has called us to.

For some of us that means reconciling what we allow to get in the way of loving others as ourselves. For someone of us that may mean pitching in and helping a neighbor with an immediate need. For some us this may mean encouraging a neighbor to use his or her gifts and talents to the best of their abilities, to live to their fullest potential. For some of us that means learning more about the needs of our neighbors that we cannot see. For example logging on to www.crs.org and becoming more informed or writing our representatives in congress to assist those most in need; because our voice must be heard, no matter how long it takes.

As Blessed John Paul II once said, "Do not be afraid. Do not be satisfied with mediocrity. Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch." As we seek to love God with our whole heart, soul, and mind may we cast our nets to love all our neighbors as ourselves and in doing be caught up in arms of God's mercy and love.

LEARN MORE: http://www.crs.org/countries/cambodia


Readings: http://www.usccb.org/

A special word of thanks to Fr. Chris Trenta, a fellow CRS Global Fellow, and parochial vicar at St. Mary Parish in Wooster for his inspiration which made this homily possible.