My Mom, my sister, and I settled in at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland, Maine, for the annual Chrism Mass. Even half an hour before the start of the mass the church was filling up with people from all over the diocese. Representatives from every parish in the state were there for the annual blessing of the holy oils used in the sacraments of baptism, confirmation, holy orders, and anointing of the sick. We were lucky to find a pew at all as we claimed our space right by the east side door, just off the parking lot.
The Bishop began his homily, centered on one of the Pope’s many letters to the faithful. He reminded us of Christ’s love in dying for us while we were still sinners and of our own call to holiness, to imitate that love in our lives.
“We learn to see him in the faces of those with whom he himself wished to be identified: the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned.”
As he said these words my attention was drawn to the door behind me. It was one of the first truly spring-like days in southern Maine and the door had been left open. A dirty, unkempt member of our fair city’s homeless population stood by the door peering into the church, placidly chewing on an ice-cream bar as the maroon-jacketed usher whispered politely but firmly to him.
Perhaps he was telling him about the standing-room only crowds, or explaining the rules of receiving communion and how the ice-cream bar broke the one-hour fast. In any case the man apparently decided not to stay.
“You have a trash can?” he asked as he finished his ice cream and was ushered outside.
The Bishop, unaware of what was happening, went on quoting the Pope’s letter: “The century and the millennium now beginning will need to see with still greater clarity, to what length of dedication the Christian community can go in charity toward the poorest.”
As the Bishop continued preaching I sat thinking: in this season we celebrate the risen Christ who is now as we shall become?who became like us so that we might become like Him. I found great comfort in this reminder that He still has a mischievous sense of humor.