Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time C. February 1, 2004. Our Lady of Grace 7:30, 11:30, 6PM. Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19. I Corinthians 12:31-13:13. Luke 4: 21-30.

In April of 1975, days before the fall of Saigon to the communist forces of North Viet Nam, a US jet carrying 243 Vietnamese orphans crashed into the Asian jungle. A third of the children burned to death and many of the remaining children were injured critically. The head of the US forces said that it would take 10 days before there would be enough resources available to rescue and treat the remaining children. An American civilian learned about the desperate plight of the Vietnamese orphans on television. No stranger to pain and difficulty in his own life, Robert Macauley was deeply moved by the plight of the children. With more luck and guts than common sense, Macauley pulled together the little money he had and convinced someone to charter him a plane. Within 48 hours the remaining orphans were delivered safely to their adoptive parents. But Macauley’s check for $10,000 bounced, and he didn’t have the money to pay the $241,000 bill that followed. To cover the cost, Macauley took out a mortgage on his house. His wife said, “The bank got our house, but Bob got the kids.” Bob Macauley’s compassion and guts led to the foundation of AmeriCares. Over the past 25 years AmeriCares has delivered more than $3.4 billion dollars in aid to 137 countries. His story reminds us about the powerful things that happen when we break away from paralyzing bureaucracy with a love and compassion that creates new possibilities. Love can do impossible things.

Oliver is a movie and a play based on Charles Dickens classic story of an orphan who runs away from the orphanage and hooks up with a group of boys trained to be thieves and pickpockets on the streets of London. Wrongly accused of stealing, Oliver is taken in from a life on the streets by more kindly people and begins to grow in trust and love. Love is what Oliver needs most of all; love is what we all need. Lack of love is the greatest poverty there is in the world. People who are orphaned by lack of love exist among the rich and among the poor. Oliver’s search for love is captured in very haunting song from the play: “Where is love? Does it fall from skies above?” ………………. Who can say where…she may hide? Must I travel far and wide? ‘Til I am beside the someone who I can mean something to….Where is love?”

Is plant earth a poor orphan turning endlessly through the vastness of the universe? Is our human race a vast network of orphans struggling to survive? In loneliness, in sickness and in old age, are we orphans and alone? Today, the Prophet Jeremiah says: “The word of the LORD came to me, saying: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appoint you….They will fight against you but not prevail over you, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.”

In these weeks after Christmas we hear again about the beginning of the mission of Jesus Christ who came to assure us that, far from being orphans or alone, we are beloved children of God. Because words are easy to say and of little value without the actions that give them value, Jesus walked among us even to the point of dying on the Cross to assure us that even when we feel most crucified we are never abandoned. God is always with us. We are never orphans, We are always children of God.

After the 9:00 Mass one morning this week I took my place in the drive-in line outside of the coffee house up the hill. The morning was cold and the line was long. A woman approached the drive-in line from the side. I did what I often do not do. I invited the woman to pull into the line in front of me. Even though I did not know her, I was trying to think of her busy day and not just my own. When I got to the drive-in window the waitress handed me my coffee order saying. “I don’t know why, but the woman ahead of you paid for your coffee.” In an instant I felt loved and warmed up by the coffee purchased by a stranger, as she must have felt my care for her in my willingness to give her the place in front of me in the line. Love can be a very small thing as this was, or a very large event, like the death of Jesus on the Cross. Love is an action, not words. Loving actions can change the world.

St. Paul’s explanation of the meaning of love in today’s first reading is one of the most beautiful passages in all of literature. I could never approach the power and depth of Paul’s words. Let us listen again true meaning of Christian love:

“If I speak in human and angelic tongues, but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.”

“If I have the gift of prophecy, and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.”

‘If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.”

“Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, it is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interest, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.”

It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Love never fails.”

“Faith, hope and love remain, these three…but the greatest of these is love.”

For God’s love and for loving actions in our own lives, we give God thanks and praise this day.