Meatfare and Feeding the Hungry
It will be Meatfare in just a few days. The wonderful meals are something to look forward to, but we also need to keep in mind that it can be a reminder to enter into Great Lent with renewed commitment to feed and comfort the suffering humanity that surrounds us.
Sunday’s gospel reading tells what is it that is asked of us, what love looks like, what it means to live like a Christian. “Feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe and give shelter to the poor and needy, visit and comfort the sick and the prisoners.” This is the way of the kingdom, pretty simple really. We are told to lay down our lives for others, to put their needs even before our own, to “deny ourselves and take up our cross daily and follow Christ.” We are to pray for those in need and do what we can to help.
We have so many opportunities to DO as Christ tells us in today’s gospel. Through our outreach to the local “least of these,” to those in Ukraine, to those recovering from the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, to those we directly encounter in our daily lives. All of these are given to us to help, that we may not arrive at the judgement seat, hungry and thirsty and naked of true spiritual food and clothing. We are given countless opportunities to choose to invest our time and resources in the kingdom of heaven. This is heart changing work.
Christ Himself experienced all these things, and as He tells us today in the gospel reading, “When you help the least of My brethren suffering any of these things, you do this directly to Me.” When you ignore them, you ignore Me! Christ has also transformed and sanctified each of these things. We hunger and He gives us the bread of life, His very body as real food. We thirst and he gives us living water that springs up into everlasting life. We are strangers and pilgrims in this world desiring to be truly known, and He prepares a true home for us in His kingdom – one prepared from the foundation of this transient world, and He tells us that we are known by God down to the very hairs of our head. We are naked and He clothes us with a garment of light, our baptismal robe, and we put on Christ Himself. He heals our passions through His passion, cures our wounds through His wounds, and although we have often forsaken Him, He never forsakes us. He came that we might have life and be renewed in the likeness of His image. He has proclaimed liberty to the captives, those imprisoned and tormented by the evil one, and has shattered the gates of hades freeing from prison all who would follow Him. We in the Church are now His body. We continue this work in Him, until He returns in power and glory at His second coming!
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