Dear Friends,
Within one week in
March, St. Patrick, St. Joseph and St. Oscar Romero are celebrated as great men
of God. March 17, 19 and 24. These three
saints, each of whom loved God deeply, came from different historical
periods and walked very different paths to God.
Patrick, an Irishman by birth, was taken to Gaul as a slave.
Eventually, he was released and became a
priest who could have worked among the Celtic people on the continent. But he
yearned for the people of his homeland, went back and worked tirelessly so that
Ireland would be ardently Christian.
Joseph, the carpenter from Nazareth, had expected a normal
length of years, with a wife and family among his own people. But God called
him to a remarkable journey as the spouse of Mary and the foster father of
Jesus.
Oscar Romero was a priest in El Salvador. In one small town where he ministered, Father Romero
was exposed to the plight of his parishioners at the hands of government agents.
He experienced a conversion to embrace the cause of the poor. As the bishop of
San Salvador, he died at the altar for it.
What was common to these men? Certainly their faith and their perseverance. But there is something very basic in all of
them. It is that they were other-centered.
Other-centeredness is the opposite of self-centeredness.
Infants are by their very makeup at that point in their lives are self-centered. Their
needs are all they know. The symbol of the self- centeredness of an infant is
how they put everything they can in their mouths. Parents have to be vigilant,
lest they take in something harmful.
It takes diligent effort to move from self-centeredness to
other-centeredness. It is the work of a lifetime to become other-centered – to
expend oneself for the good, the well-being of others, to open the way for
others to recognize God’s abiding presence and treasure it.
Certainly Jesus is our primary example of other-centeredness
through his life and through his death. One person in the gospel who mirrors
Jesus’ other-centeredness is the Syro-Phoenician woman – the foreigner who came
to Jesus begging for her daughter to be cured. And how about the man whom Jesus met at the foot of the mountain
right after the Transfiguration. The man
wanted healing for this son. The disciples still, seeking to be first in the
kingdom of God, were not
other-centered enough to heal the boy.
But Jesus did so. Jesus recognized other-centered people when he met
them. Still, he loved and worked with his disciples who were “on the way” but
not yet other-centered.
During this Lent, as we take time to honor and celebrate the
great generosity of Joseph, Patrick and Oscar, let’s ask our Gracious God that
we might become bigger of heart and mind, so that others may live as fully as
possible.
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