“Whatever you did to the least of these brothers of mine, you did to me.”
When I was growing up in Ireland,
I lived in a small town outside Dublin called Bray.
We lived in a town house just off the main street,
about eight houses off the main street.
While it was a small town, it was a low-income town
and as a result there was quite a bit of poverty in our town.
We would regularly have beggars on the streets.
It would be a common-enough occurrence.
Every now and then, we would have gypsies.
We called them tinkers back in Ireland.
They would come and they would park their vans and their caravans
on the outside of town and they would come into town.
The women would often beg on the streets.
Because we lived just off the main street,
they would often go down into the streets and knock on people’s doors.
There was this one woman, who would come every Saturday.
I would get so irritated because she would walk by
all the other doors in the neighborhood
because nobody else gave her any money.
One day she rang our doorbell.
So I went and opened up the door this day.
And she says, “Is your Ma there?”
I said, “No. My mother is not at home.”
And she says, “Ah well, I know but could you tell your mother
that Mrs. O’Brien is outside anyway?”
I closed the door but I went back in and my mother asked,
“Who is that?”
And I said, “Nobody.”
And she says “Oh, it wasn’t Mrs. O’Brien was it?”
And I said, “Mrs. O’Brien? Who is Mrs. O’Brien?”
“Ah, you know the woman who comes for a little bit of money.”
And I said, “I didn’t know that was her name but yes; that was her.”
My mom immediately gets up, she goes over to her purse
and she grabs out a fifty-pence coin.
Back 45 plus years ago, that would not have been
a small amount of money for a mother,
raising 12 children, minding her own pennies.
She gives it to me and says, “Give that to Mrs. O’Brien.”
And I go to the door and Mrs. O’Brien is standing there at the door,
knowing well that my mother was going to be coming.
Instead I was sent and I had my tail between my legs;
and I gave her the fifty pence.
When I came back in, my mother told me to sit down and said,
“Now, Brendan that woman is not a nobody.
She is a tinker and her name is Mrs. O’Brien.
And she has 8 children.
God bless her soul.
She comes here because she knows I will give her something
and I will always give her something.
And you should be grateful that
your mother is not out begging for food for you.
Now you will treat her with respect.”
That day, I learned a powerful lesson,
not just from my mother but from Mrs. O’Brien;
that she had a name.
She wasn’t nobody.
She was a person struggling to make ends meet.
She was one of the little ones.
Often I would see her later as I grew up;
I would see her down the town
and I would greet her as if she was a neighbor
and she eventually learned my name and would greet me.
My friends were always embarrassed
that I knew the beggars but I was not.
There is something different that happens
when you learn somebody’s name;
when you know who they are
and maybe a little of their story.
In today’s gospel, Jesus tells us that
those who are going to be the greatest in the kingdom of God
are those who treat the little ones with respect;
with kindness; and with gentleness.
I am sure there are many Mrs. O’Briens
I have walked past over my many years
and often I get reminders to always care for those little ones.
They have a name.
You know our country was built on immigrants.
And those immigrants many years ago were
in fact people with names like Mrs. O’Brien and McGraw
and McLaughlin and McGovern.
Then years later, there were Lees, and Yees and Wongs;
then there were Feinsteins and Weinsteins and Furstenbergs
and the list goes on.
Today those same immigrants have names like
Rodriguez, Carlos, Juan and so on and so on.
The one thing they have in common
is the same thing that Mrs. O’Brien had,
trying to make ends meet and to raise her family with dignity.
They say that a country is defined
by how they treat the little ones.
We need to look at how we treat those that are most in need;
those who are broken;
those who are wounded;
and those who are hurt.
We not only have to do this as a country.
We have to do it as individuals.
Because that is what the Kingdom of God is all about.
That is what this Kingdom of what we celebrate today;
that we come to celebrate Christ as King of all of us.
And there is only one human race and
we are all under that one King, Christ.
It is important for all of us and pertinent to all of us
to reflect upon who are the little ones in our lives.
Who are the ones we could reach out to,
not allow them to become anonymous
either by a number;
or by where they came from;
or the color of their skin
but to know that they have a name
and that they require of us dignity.
Today, can we reflect on who are the little ones in our lives?
And can we find out their stories?
Can we at least treat them with respect and kindness and gentleness?
Everyone has a name;
and we would do well to remember
that we are not out searching for money
just to put food on our table;
and we are grateful to know that
God will take care of them
but we play a role in caring for them.
“Whatever you did to the least of these brothers of mine, you did to me.”
