Deacon Tom Writes,
A Town Without Pity
Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time_Year A
Gene Pitney began his singing career in the sleepy town of Litchfield, Connecticut. You don’t hear his songs played very much anymore but his loyal fans still sing-along when he pops up on the oldies station. One of his big hits was “A Town Without Pity” and the refrain goes, “No, it isn’t very pretty what a town without pity can do”. Jesus understood this human drama all too well. In today’s gospel Jesus has a different venue as Matthew tells that Jesus is moved with pity for the crowd that followed Him because “they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd”.
Most dictionaries define pity as, a feeling of sympathy and sorrow for the misfortunes of others. The Marrian-Webster Dictionary uses the word “compassion” to describe the feeling Jesus has when He sees the crowd assembled before him. According to the definition in the dictionary, compassion is the “sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.
Jesus did not come just to “feel our pain”. He came to do something about it. And so, He calls his disciples together and He gives them the authority to “cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, drive out demons.” And then He sends them on their way.
Before He sent them on their way, however, He told them to pray that the master of the harvest would send more help. That’s where you and I enter the picture my brothers and sisters. We are the answer to the prayers of many, many people who throughout the generations have asked God for workers to help Him do His work to end the hunger, the violence, the suffering, and the illusions of power and privilege that have made many places, here and around the world, a Town Without Pity. We are called to be sympathetic to those who suffer, and we are called to be moved, as was Jesus, to do something about it.
Enjoy the day!
Deacon Tom
Please Visit www.deaconspod.com where you will find contemporary conversations with several Paulist Deacon Affiliates and their guests exploring the treasures our Catholic faith has to offer to those on the threshold of our church… those thinking of joining our Catholic Community or walking away from it.
OTHER RESOURCE
Recommended Reading: The Saint’s Guide to Happiness by Robert Ellsberg. In our search for genuine happiness, the author suggests that some of the best people to show us how to achieve it are holy men and women throughout history who have experienced it—from St. Augustine to Flannery O’Connor, Thomas Merton to St. Theresa of Avila and Mother Theresa. These people weren’t saints because of the way they died or their visions or wondrous deeds. They were saints because of their extraordinary capacity for goodness and love, which—in the end—makes us happy.Fr. Richard Rohr seeks to help readers understand the tasks of the two halves of life and to show them that those who have fallen, failed, or "gone down" are the only ones who understand "up."
Recommended YouTube Video: Authentic Happiness and Human Flourishing Series - Week One - In this four-week series, Dean Steve Thomason draws on resources from Martin Seligman, Berne Brown and Richard Rohr, using scientific work to explore elements of human experience that lead to authentic happiness, flourishing and deep meaning, and set all that against a backdrop of the gospel as good news, inviting all people into the fullness of life.
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