September 21, 2016

St. Matthew, apostle and evangelist

Mt 9: 9-13

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.

Children of God

In the United States and other countries, Jesuit Refugee Service works with refugees and asylum seekers in detention. JRS aspires to be hospitality in action by walking alongside and offering hospitality to the most vulnerable; those "at the frontiers of humanity."

Jesuit Refugee Service/USA chaplaincy programs enable people of all faiths, who have been detained while seeking asylum or because they crossed the border without papers, to have access to pastoral care within their faith tradition.

In calling for an authentic culture of encounter, Pope Francis writes: "The Good Samaritan not only draws nearer to the man he finds half dead on the side of the road; he takes responsibility for him. Jesus shifts our understanding: it is not just about seeing the other as someone like myself, but of the ability to make myself like the other…we are all human beings, children of God."

—Christian Fuchs serves as Communications Director for Jesuit Refugee Service/USA.

Prayer

To love at all is to become vulnerable. 
Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken.

—C.S. Lewis