Faith for others · Saints John and James Parish

Faith for others

This morning at the 6:30am I offered the following homily.

Have you ever felt like you are overwhelmed in life, or overcome with your own struggles, but are constantly helping other people? You get off the phone after counseling someone who needed some advice or comfort and sigh thinking, “I wish I could listen to my own advice?!?” Sometimes helping others when we are overwhelmed, we can feel the weight of our own exhaustion, tempted to pull back and gather yourself for a bit to recoup.

But…

The apple tree isn’t fed by its own apples.

The blueberry bush doesn’t feed on its own blueberries.

The trees all find their nourishment from the ground and the sun and the rain, but their fruit sustains others…

So it is with us.

Our fruit, the work Jesus asks us to do in service of the community isn’t for ourselves and our own benefit and growth… it is meant for others. If we pull back when we feel overwhelmed and try and hoard the fruit for ourselves, it still wouldn’t provide us with the proper nourishment… your work and ministry bears fruit in the community, not to bear fruit for yourself.

The nourishment for all of our work is Jesus. We need to go to the source to receive His nourishment and life. Only there can we find the proper foundation and life we need to serve one another. So when you feel the weight of life over you, go to Jesus, and then continue to serve the community in love and the Lord will still produce fruit. When all of us in the community work to bear fruit, then we are at the service of one another and we find nourishment in one another’s gifts.

Look at St. Theresa of Calcutta. She experienced the “dark night of the soul” for fifty years. Fifty years she experienced nothing but grief and loneliness in prayer, yet she produced much fruit by her work and ministry. You want to know how? She kept coming back to the source. Day after day, year after year, she went to the Eucharist for nourishment and life. Two hours of adoration every day and the little saint became an instrument of grace and peace to the world. She fed the poor, taught the nations, and witnessed to the world the glory of God. These were her fruits, and if we go to the same source we can bear fruit, too!

Happy Sunday!

Go and be a witness!!!

Fr. Fleming

2 comments