Transcription
You are going to die, and you're going to be judged by our Lord Jesus. Do you know how you're going to be judged? I think this is one of those most difficult existential questions that many people struggle with. But the good news is, be not afraid, because the truth is, our Lord Jesus actually maps out this judgment in the scriptures, specifically in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25. And it's called the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.
See, the problem is, when people think about judgment, they think a lot about how Jesus is going to judge according to, well, of course, our sins, but also with all these opinions, right? Like, what was your theology on this? Like, did you believe in the homosios, or, or what is your position on this doctrine, right? So you have like, these extremes. How do we realize when it comes to following Jesus, there shouldn't be a camp? Like, no, we should follow Jesus, and that means we take care of him, most especially the Holy Eucharist in the liturgy and the ritual. But then we also take care of him with all those little ones that have been neglected or abandoned or just outright denied. So today, as we focus on the corporal and the spiritual works of mercy, we try to see how we can merge the two together to be a true disciple of Jesus Christ. So that begins again with Matthew 25:31-46. But I want to read to you specifically verses 34-36. And so here we go.
"Then the king will say to those at his right hand, 'Come, O blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me.'"
So, the thing about this entire passage, if you keep reading, Dr. John Bergsma has a very interesting point. He says, "When you look at both the saved and the damned, the sheep and the goats, they actually both say the same thing. They both question our Lord, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you?'" Because neither of them were able to see Christ when they saw the least of his brethren. But the reality is, Jesus is saying, "Whether or not you knew it was me, you have to serve." And the sheep, regardless of whether or not they knew it was Jesus, which they didn't, they served him because they were intentional to serve the abandoned, the poor, the hungry, the neglected. So this is the thing that everyone needs to hear, even secular viewers. When you are giving of yourself, like the humanitarian aid is a beautiful thing, and that is a really good opportunity or step towards knowing Christ. Because at least in engaging in this way and helping our brothers and sisters, we are actually encountering Christ. And so I'm telling you, this is a big step. That is one clear way to making God known in our lives. And when you finish that with the liturgy and the highest sacrament, the Holy Eucharist, I'm telling you, your Christian life is complete.
So let's take a brief look at the list, right? Say the list, but the 14 works of mercy. You've got seven spiritual works, seven corporal works. Now, before I go into them, I'm going to go through them very briefly, but pay attention because I'm going to allude to this list later on. So, in the first seven corporal works of mercy, we have: feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, visit the sick, visit the imprisoned, and bury the dead. And then you have the seven spiritual works of mercy, in which you have: instruct the ignorant, counsel the doubtful, admonish a sinner, bear wrongs patiently, forgive offenses willingly, comfort the afflicted, and pray for the living and the dead.
Okay, so notice what is and what is not on this list. There's nothing on this about being famous. There's nothing on it about being successful or being right on the internet. None of these things really matter in the big picture. It's all about that personal encounter with humanity and helping them discover that they are loved, and us re-encountering that God loves us. And so the important thing is, it's not about whether or not we see Christ in the person in front of us. It's that when we recognize that someone is in need, this is literally our opportunity to serve Christ. So when you think about the saints, the giants, those who made an impact in this world through their lives serving the poor, and they say that they saw Christ, it's not that they always literally saw Jesus. But no matter who they were serving, they knew that Christ was in front of them. That's the beauty, and that's how he's going to judge us.
So there are three major institutions that we need to focus on, and those are hospitals, universities, and finally, orphanages. So hospitals. The hospital, as we know it, is a place where strangers, especially including the poor, get treated, especially by those who have a very particular vocation to taking care of those patients. And what do you know? All of this was invented by the Catholic Church. Yes, that's right. Back in the 4th century, in the Council of Nicaea, specifically the year 325 AD, the church required that all those cathedral cities must have a hospital. Back then, it was known by the name xenodochia. Then, by the Middle Ages, monasteries across Europe had xenodochias laid out everywhere. There were thousands. We know that by the Middle Ages, this became a standard for cities. That's right. Not only that, when you look at the root word of hospital in Latin, you get hospice, which is also a root word for hospitality. Yes, this is a Catholic word.
Universities. Okay, the university as an institution was not created until the Middle Ages, as we know it. So Bologna, Paris, Oxford, you think about these universities, all founded as Catholic institutions. They were all founded to study philosophy, theology, and then you have law and the natural world order. Most of the oldest universities that we know to this day have Latin inscriptions on the building. Why do you think that is? Is because these were written by the bishops and also by the theologians and monks who wanted to remind those that were studying the core principle of why we're studying. So you've got like, veritas and libertatis, right? Truth and freedom. But the institutions were laid out so that many clergy could be formed properly, so that they may be able to instruct the common folk, specifically in the higher things, in the higher intellectual pursuits of life.
And then we come to the orphanages. Care for the abandoned children was a very distinctly Christian service. In the Roman Empire, exposing unwanted infants, especially young girls, was a normal and legal deed. Christians scandalized the pagan world by picking up these poor abandoned children, neglected children, and actually trying to raise them. There is a really important historian, his name is Ronnie Stark, and he's a sociologist that specializes in religion, and he documents all of this Christian history in great detail. Christianity did not just preach about the need to care for the sick and the dying, especially for the dignity of the human person. It lived it out by picking up dying babies from the street. Right now, take for example, Catholic Charities. This is the largest institution in the United States, a nonprofit that actually cares for people that are outside the non-governmental sector. So again, we've got the hospitals, universities or schools, and orphanages. These are the core of these corporal works that have made themselves into self-giving institutions.
But you know what's amazing? There are so many heroic examples. I want to point to one modern example. He is a diocesan priest who grew up in Washington D.C. but actually ended up serving in Busan, Korea, and his name is Venerable Aloysius Schwartz. He died in 1992 to ALS. He originally arrived in Korea in 1957, and I'm telling you, he erected all three, all over. He started in Busan, then went up to Seoul, but he also went to the Philippines, he went to Mexico, and he went to other countries. But what's amazing is this man was a man who had a heart for our Lord, and all he wanted to do was passionately love our Lord in every way possible. But he found in his heart that there was a great need for the poor. And so he had a very close devotion to Mother Mary, specifically under the title of Our Lady, Mother of the Poor, in effect consecrating himself to her. He went to Korea and he built many hospitals, and these hospitals took in the best doctors, and he gave them huge salaries that are more than the public ones, so that they would come to his hospital, and then from this hospital, they would freely take care of the poor. He wouldn't take any money from them because they had nothing. So he was able to serve the poor with the best treatments that people were getting from public hospitals. And then they weren't universities, but they were amazing schools for foster children. Children whose dads died in the Korean War, who had nowhere to go, and whose mothers would die from malnourishment. And these kids, having nowhere else to go, would come to these schools seeking refuge. But in this opportunity, he taught them the faith, how to love God. He gave them a sense of order in their day, to know how to prioritize in life, so that they have a fighting chance at becoming successful as grown adults. That really is a two-for, because the school became an institution to really educate them on the higher things of life. But it also taught them in a place how to have order in the home, because they were also orphanages that took the children in. So in effect, he was able to do all three: hospitals, schools, and orphanages, and continue to live his priesthood in a very heroic way.
Now, if you watch this channel because of Sarang School and you know you have this Korean background or you're Korean-American, I'm telling you, like this is the saint you have to know and you have to pray to. Again, he's not canonized yet. He's a venerable, but we need a miracle because he is a hero that should be readily available and and known by many. So the beauty is, no matter what your vocation, if you really try to give God your very best, to really love him, he stretches your heart, and you're able to really serve him in many capacities.
Now, as a priest, like Venerable Aloysius, I get to offer a lot of sacraments. And of them, when I give the Anointing of the Sick, it's a very powerful encounter in which I sometimes witness miracles. And in this, I'm visiting the sick, so I'm practicing, in effect, the corporal works of mercy. And then because I'm giving them an anointing, I'm literally taking care of them through the spiritual work. For example, I remember back in the year 2020, it was in the spring, think March, this is when the pandemic, as many of you remember, was at its peak. No one was allowed to visit the hospitals. They were completely locked down. But believe it or not, at a public hospital at the UCI Medical Center, they called me with an anointing for a sick call because they had an emergency where one of the patients, this Catholic woman, was bound to die. She was already hooked up to the oxygen tank, and she was really hanging on to her last breath. So I quickly rushed over. I knew that she was one of our parishioners. And it shocked me because she was so healthy before. They had me doubled up in everything: double gloves, double suits. They had me give, put on the mask and the shield. Like, this was pretty intense. And so I'm finally walking in there. I look down and I see her, and she's looking right back at me, and she has this tube that's connected to her throat because she can't breathe on her own. She obviously can't talk. So I hear her confession, but it's very unique because she can't confess out loud. You know, it's all done internally through her mind. And when she's done, then like I give her the absolution. But after that, I continue with the Anointing of the Sick. As I'm giving her the anointing, it's really heavy because I know that this is it, and that she's going to die. And we both knew. When I locked eyes with her, I had to tell her that I was going to tell her husband, and I knew her heart, and that it would be okay, that I will assure him that you're praying for them because I knew he's a he's a strong man. They have a son, that I will continue to be there for their son, to continue to take care of him spiritually. So I give her this anointing, and tears are falling down her eyes, and I said my goodbyes. I met with her husband. He, he already knew as well. So I gave him the contact to the office and let him know that when it's time that we can help him to make the funeral arrangements.
So fast forward a few days go by, and I'm just kind of on alert, knowing that the phone call can come any moment now. But for some reason, it's just not coming. And then the next day, no call. The following day, no call. I'm kind of wondering, like, is she okay? What's going on? And then the following week, believe it or not, she comes to Sunday Mass. She's frail, she's still recovering, but with tears in her eyes, she's so elated. She gives me a big hug. She just says, "Thank you." The works of mercy, you know, whether or not you experience the consolations of serving in the moment, it really isn't about us. It's what God is asking of us to serve the other people. But like, when these moments where you get to experience the fruit when they come, it's an incredible experience. It's a a real foretaste of the love that we'll be able to experience forever in the kingdom to come. And so I can see the wisdom in which God is giving us this blueprint to try to continue to live these things out now, because in effect, they are creating the way for us to understand God's wisdom and to have a foresight of the kingdom and to desire it more and more as we continue to practice both the corporal and the spiritual works.
Now, some of you might think, okay, Father, I mean, the religion is great, but it's not always necessary. Like today, even though the Catholic Church set it all up, sure, historically, I get that. That's great. But now the secular world, like you have institutions run by the government and these other public services, and now, to be honest, they do a better job than the church. I mean, maybe on one end, yeah, maybe you might be right. Maybe they are able to have more technologically advanced equipment or all these things. But let's just think about what ultimately matters first. The secular institutions, they can't create a person who would just randomly pick up lepers rather than running away from them and caring for them and and taking care of their wounds. The secular institution doesn't have someone willing to listen to other people confess from their hearts for 16 hours a day. The secular institution, yeah, they might be able to create these beautiful clinics, but they won't create Mother Teresa. But the Catholic Church did, and continues to not just repeatedly today, but across centuries, across nations. That is empirical.
Second, when the secular state does charity without knowing the theology of the imago Dei, which is lifetime for the image of God, then the state starts to question at what point are lives really worth caring for? And when it struggles with that question, then we have to figure out, because we can't take care of everyone, we don't have the funds for everything. At what point do we start eliminating? So many times it begins with the elderly. They're just too much for the economy. We've got to cut them out. And then you have all the disabled people. Maybe someone is born with extra chromosomes, or maybe they're born with one less. So we've got to cut them out. How do we do that? Abortion. And then you have those unborn people that are just, I hate to say it, but a nuisance to their parents. And so how does the government cut them out? Again, abortion. It's a tragedy that we're seeing happen right now in real time across western countries, and right here in sunny California. I hate to say it, but our tax dollars are making this happen. It's painful. This is the government, and this is their efforts of charity.
So this is my point as the final objection. You have the same, whatever charitable institution. Take soup kitchens, for example. You can have soup kitchens that are serving the same people. One soup kitchen is a secular soup kitchen, and the other is a Catholic soup kitchen. Both are going to take care of this homeless person and feed the person and satisfy their hunger. Sure, on one end, they satisfy their physical hunger, but only one of them is going to look at that homeless person beyond humanitarian needs and see in them that they are made in the image and likeness of God, and remind that person that he or she is loved by God. And because of that love, that person is going to feel a satisfaction, a spiritual appetite that is fulfilled, a spiritual longing and hunger that is fulfilled that cannot be fulfilled in any other way. That is the personal touch. That is the encounter that our Lord is offering. That is why these are works of mercy.
When we see this list of these seven corporal works and seven spiritual works, I just invite you to take a good look at them again, and perhaps look at maybe one that you can really work on. And this is a good opportunity for us. Again, don't brush it off as something that may be nice to do, but really take it to heart, because this is something that we heard Jesus will judge us for. Don't only look at this as the bare minimum. How can I begin here and try to do well so that the day I see our Lord, I can show him that I have flourished in these acts of charity and have encountered a deeper love through them, in which not only did I practice learning how to love others, but then I learned how much I am loved by God himself.
My friends, whatever it is, donate to a homeless shelter. Visit those that are in prison. Forgive someone who's been holding a grudge against you. Go and go to the hospitals for the elderly and just spend some time with them. Maybe someone is grieving. Go and give them a phone call. Whatever it is, keep it simple. Don't overthink it. And at the end of the day, if you can do it without telling anyone, in Matthew 6, remember that verse, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. That is the best part when you are doing these acts, and it's just you and God. That's the most beautiful, intimate way of preparing for the day that you'll see him face to face.
All right, subscribe. We've got one more episode for this series next week. Till then, thanks for joining me. See you in the Eucharist.