"I finally sold Agnes' house!!" my realtor friend said happily and proudly. "My motto is that everyone who wants to own a home should be able to find a way to do so. I sold the house to a young Muslim couple who want to start and raise a family here. They're so happy with the house that they've already invited me over to dinner!" Agnes' home where she raised her children will now become a valued home for another generation of children.
Another young man in our parish is a legal advocate for people in danger of losing their homes to bankruptcy. His motto shows that he has the same values as the realtor: for him, everyone should be able to own a home - and be able to find a way to keep it when life gets tough. Slowly, carefully, he explains the Law to them, and finds out how they can work with the Law to keep their treasured homes. Needless to say, there are banks he finds cooperative, and banks in which management have hearts which have gone astray.
Both these men have natural gifts in different fields; both have decided to use those gifts, those talents, to assist people wth a natural human right - the right to have a home of their own. Both of them have hearts which understand love and give love.
In Psalm 95, God sounds off about people who challenge Him and provoke Him, although they have seen all of His works. God says, broken-hearted, "They are a people whose hearts go astray and they do not know my ways." Being pleasing to God only begins with keeping basic rules like the Ten Commandments. Being pleasing to God at the highest level involves knowing God's Ways, which means intimately knowing Who God is. More, really, than knowing Who God is, but loving Who God is - Mercy, Compassion, Understanding, Love. As St. Clare says, "Who we love shapes who we become." If we know and love God and God's Ways, we become like God, His Ways are our ways, and His people are our people. If we don't bother to get to know Who God really is, who His people are, our hearts are not united to God's heart. Slowly, surely, our hearts go astray.
Somehow today I see a strange new morality creeping into politics; I call it the "Immoralization of the Poor." Somehow some "moral" politicians have decided that to be poor is immoral; there is something wrong with you morally if you have allowed yourself to be poor. Therefore, the Government needs to take away some of the poor's safety nets to force them to grow up, man up, take on responsibility for their lives. Their lives will then miraculously become better if they can just "Get Jesus into their lives." Thus - we have proposals to replace "ObamaCare" (The Affordable Care Act) with plans that will relieve those who are rich (and therefore, by this strange morality, better human beings than the middle class and poor) of some unwanted taxation by cutting back on programs for those manifestly immoral poor (and let's count immigrants among them, who will have to wait five years to be eligible for insurance.)
I maintain that the proposed House and Senate replacements, while they contain surely some good suggestions, are, in many ways, the misguided work of politicians whose hearts have gone astray. Some of these politicians neither know nor love God or God's ways. If they truly knew their Scripture, they'd know that in neither the Old nor the New Testament do we find a God Who rails against the poor. God always rails against those who take advantage of the poor! Why should we presume that the poor are poor through their own fault? People have calamities in their lives. The elderly living only on Social Security are often choosing between spending their money on food or on medicine. People have life-long mental and physical disabilities. People have addictions - and a long time ago, Churches agreed with psychologists and Doctors that addictions are not moral weaknesses but rather illnesses to be healed with counseling and support groups as well as prayer.
"'What do you mean by crushing my people, and grinding down the poor when they look to you?' says the Lord the God of hosts." (Isaiah 3:15)
Jesus tells us that, at the Last Judgement, we will be judged by how well we have fed the hungry and clothed the naked - and nowhere does he suggest that we test their morality ahead of time.
What do we know about what's proposed for Health Care now? "America" magazine states,
"On Thursday, Senate Republicans released their version of a bill aimed at repealing the Affordable Care Act...., drawing swift condemnation from one prominent Catholic health group, which said it is “strongly opposed” to the measure. Catholic bishops took a more nuanced view, strongly condemning portions of the bill that they say harm the social safety net but praising language that would restrict funding for abortion providers.
"The bill would replace President Obama’s signature health care legislation with a law that relies on tax credits for low-income Americans to buy health insurance and would make deep cuts to Medicaid funding for states, which was expanded under the A.C.A.
"'Just like the House passed American Health Care Act, the Senate proposal will have a devastating impact on our nation’s most vulnerable populations,” Sister Carol Keehan, head of the Catholic Health Association, said in a statement. 'After weeks of working behind closed doors, and despite claims that the Senate would start over and develop its own legislation, there is very little that differs from the House bill. We can and must do better on behalf of all those who rely on our nation’s health care programs and providers.....The small tweaks made in the newly released Senate bill do not change the fact that millions will lose their health care especially through a complete restructuring and deep federal funding reduction to the Medicaid program.' The C.H.A. represents more than 600 Catholic hospitals in the United States.
"On June 26, an analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported that the Senate health care bill would result in 22 million more uninsured Americans over the next decade compared to current law.... The projected outcome of the Senate plan is barely an improvement upon the health care bill that passed the House—which would have resulted in 23 million more uninsured.
"Several GOP senators have said they want to see their bill cover more people than the House version. And President Donald Trump himself called the House bill "mean" — though he's lent his support to the Senate version and is lobbying for passage.
"Catholic bishops released a statement on Thursday evening saying that parts of the Senate proposal would “cause disturbing damage to the human beings served by the social safety net” and that it could “wreak havoc on low-income families and struggling communities, and must not be supported.”
"Promising to review the full bill more closely, Bishop Frank J. Dewane, head of the bishops’ domestic justice committee, said, 'It must be made clear now, however, that this proposal retains many of the fundamental defects of the House of Representatives-passed health care legislation, and even further compounds them.'
“'It is precisely the detrimental impact on the poor and vulnerable that makes the Senate draft unacceptable as written,' he continued.
"He also expressed disappointment that the bill does not include provisions to include more coverage for immigrants nor conscience protections for health care workers and called on the Senate 'to make changes to the draft that will protect those persons on the peripheries of our health care system.'
"According to an early analysis by The Washington Post, the Senate bill retains many elements of a bill passed last month by the House of Representatives, including the repeal of a government mandate that requires Americans to buy health insurance, the repeal of a rule that requires large companies to offer health insurance and large cuts to Medicaid. Both bills also temporarily freeze funding to Planned Parenthood, let young people stay on their parents’ health plan until age 26 and allow insurance companies to determine essential health benefits. Under the A.C.A. (Obama Care), essential health benefits, which are regulated by the government, include hospital visits, maternity care and treatment for mental health.
"The Senate version, dubbed the Better Care Reconciliation Act, differs from the House bill in that it does not allow insurance companies to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions.
"The Senate bill, drafted in secret, would use the savings from reduced health insurance subsidizes to offer large tax cuts. (to the wealthy).
"Sister Keehan in her statement urged Congress 'to ensure that the funds currently supporting health care programs remain in the system under any legislative proposal, instead of being diverted for tax cuts for the more fortunate. And above all, we urge our elected officials always to keep in mind the unborn and the many millions of poor individuals and vulnerable families who will be affected by any changes to our health care system.' "
My friends, do you hear in this plan the cry of Cain to God - "Am I my brother's keeper?" And, believe me, just as Abel died at his brother Cain's hand, so many will die at their politician brothers' and sisters' hands if the Senate and House plans are not changed. It's way past time for our politicians to listen to the Voice of the Lord, to truly look at His ways, to understand and embrace His heart, His concerns, His people, as their own.
Where can we find hope? We can find hope in the ordinary people, like my parishioner friends, who value helping others more than making a "financial killing." We can find hope in people like these citizens of Toronto, Canada, who hold vigil for the homeless who have died:
"With 49 million visitors to the Eaton Centre in 2015 and mobs streaming into City Hall each day to take care of civic business, it can be hard to notice the small, aging Anglican church sandwiched between the two institutions of commerce and government. On the second Tuesday of every month, however, the Church of the Holy Trinity is harder to miss. On those Tuesdays a group of friends, health care workers, advocates and others gather to hold a vigil for those who died homeless in the city in the previous month.
"'Someone once described the church as a symbol of disruption,' said Holy Trinity’s parish priest, Sherman Hesselgrave, acknowledging the church’s peculiar geography. Amid all the foot traffic on June 13, three names, two Jane Does and one John Doe, were added to a memorial consisting of a list of names behind glass outside the church.
“'Imagine the loss of dignity, being called ‘Jane Doe’!” said Don Weitz, an 86-year-old self-described “social justice and antipsychiatry activist,” after reading from a poem during the vigil. Mr. Weitz is a survivor of abuse in mental health clinics and said that knowing many other survivors of mental health clinics who are homeless is one reason the memorial is important to him.
"The list of those remembered, cobbled together by a grassroots network of family, friends, and acquaintances, includes specific names, nicknames and the John and Jane Does added when a death is confirmed but no one is able to identify the deceased. During the vigil, a moment of silence is called by Janice Towndrow, once homeless herself, for these three most recently lost lives.
"A number of poems, songs, speeches and stories follow. This particular vigil is attended by nearly 50 people, including Toronto City Councillor Joe Mihevc and Toronto Public Health spokesperson Dr. Eileen de Villa.
"In January, the city of Toronto began collecting data for the first time on deaths among its homeless population. From January to March 27 deathswere recorded, more than two per week. In an e-mailed statement after the vigil, Dr. de Villa said that number could rise as the city continues to hear back from approximately 200 social and health services. Homeless people “are at greater risk for adverse health outcomes and contribute disproportionately to early death and other morbidities,” Dr. de Villa said.
"Cathy Crowe, a street nurse and activist, said the official numbers suggest there could be three to four times as many deaths as those recorded at the memorial. “They’re not natural deaths. They’re violent deaths,” she said.
"Bonnie Briggs, who works for a variety of community initiatives and delivered two poems at the vigil, founded the memorial. Now in her 60s, she got the idea in 1997, during her last year in college, where she studied community organizing. Ms. Briggs and her husband were once homeless themselves. Originally, she said, she wanted to have the memorial at Nathan Phillips Square, a plaza in front of New City Hall, but the memorial was not approved. 'Political people don’t like being reminded of stuff like that,' she said." (written by Dean Detloff, June 27, "America" magazine.)
How often we refer to Jesus as One Who is "meek and humble of heart." If we are truly humble, like Jesus, we don't judge the hearts of those who live in circumstances which differ from our own. We know that the heart of Jesus is the heart of a Healer, because he came to us as a physician for the sick. Instead of judging the morality - or hearts - of the broken poor and the broken homeless, why can't we look at others with compassionate respect for what they are thinking, feeling, and experiencing? Fr. Ronald Rolheiser tells us,
"Our heart, and indeed every human heart, is a mystery that may be entered only with reverence. We know that when we interrelate with others, we must be careful never to violate their freedom. We must always stand before them patiently, respecting their inner freedom and dictates. When we deal with others, we may encourage, challenge, and perhaps even prod slightly at times, but we may never push too hard. We must respect the mystery that is the human heart. It has, as Pascal aptly put it, its reasons that the head does not know of. Hence there is no place for heavy equipment, heavy words, and ultimatums when dealing with the human heart. The kinks and knots, the tensions and the hang-ups, must be allowed to work themselves out slowly. Great patience and great respect are always required." (from "The Restless Heart.")
If only we would all immerse our hearts in the loving, humble, healing heart of Christ! If only we would all use our gifts to stand with and beside those who are poor, homeless, and suffering, instead of standing above them, looking down at them as those who are morally "less than" we are. Because if we loved with the wounded, broken Heart of Christ,pierced by a lance, we'd realize that our own hearts are broken, flawed, and imperfect. If we loved with the Heart of Christ, stretched to include all humanity, our hearts would never go astray!