Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 3, 2023 – Jeremiah 20:7-9; Romans 12:1-2; Matthew 16:21-27

One way of understanding today’s Gospel is to see it as a conflict of understanding over the goals and the methods of mission. And, throughout the church’s history, we have struggled with both of those questions. But, through it all, what Isaiah has said in the first reading is the thing that motivates missionary work. And that is that “My heart is burning. I cannot keep in the message of the Good News.” To tell us more about how her missionary order uses mission in the 21st century is Sister Maria.

I am Maria Goetschalckx. I am a Cuban. And, with the exception of one sister, my family lives in Belgium. My family in the Church are the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill. I am proud to speak to you today about our foreign missions in South Korea, China and Ecuador.

Today is the twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time. Ordinary time in our day-to-day lives is safe and intimate with family. We are in committed relationships and sometimes we feel irritated with one and another. Deep love does call for deep fidelity and a focus on our partners. So it was, between Yahweh and Israel. Jeremiah was angry, mostly with himself. He is trying to do what Yahweh wills, and people make fun of him. He persists because his soul longs for Yahweh and he is committed to following Him. He shows unwavering resolve.

The second reading is St. Paul’s prayer for us. That we, gifted with God’s love, may live our lives in a manner that pleases God. Paul challenges us to live our lives as critical observers of the world in which we live to discern what is good and pleasing to God and to commit to that.  The Gospel highlights what is at stake. Everything. And it does take unwavering resolve to follow Jesus.

Peter was wrong when he tried to deflect Jesus’ analysis that he would suffer. Jesus rebuffs him with rather strong words. “Get behind me, Satan.” Jesus goes on and underscores that, if we want to follow him, we must deny ourselves and take up our cross. It’s not all that negative. Meaning, we must choose to live our lives with the gospel ethic. What would Jesus do in this circumstance? If our focus, at all times, is on our personal want and need at that moment, we can never be satisfied. 

We are created for and called to be in relationships. We are called to be in communion. In communion with the poor, with a stranger, with those who are ill or are in need. As in our families and between us and those we call friends, in good and satisfying relationships, our focus is on the one we encounter, not on our own glory or power. We move in faith and trust that God is with us in those other focused choices, whether they are easy or difficult.

Last Sunday, Paul reminded us that we can’t know God’s mind and that none of us have ever been appointed as God’s advisor. And that none of us have given God anything so valuable that God owes us. The truth is we live in grace. As Paul said, “From Him and through Him and for Him are all things. To Him be  glory forever.” We repeat and pray Paul’s confession of faith in our Eucharistic celebration at the end of the Eucharistic prayer before we receive communion. The Eucharist is our celebration of Jesus’ ultimate gift to us. His life, so that we might live. So that our sins might be forgiven.

Back to our not so ordinary, ordinary time. By virtue of our baptism, we have a deeply personal relationship with God. We are like Jeremiah, lifted up to the task and sometimes called naive. We are like Paul, deeply committed. We strive to be like Jesus moving from love, through love, to love.

A very long introduction to say that we, as Sisters of Charity, follow Jesus in the service of the poor. We think of the city street as our cloister, of the parish church as our chapel, and of modesty as our veil. With about 300 Sisters in the United States, Korea and Ecuador and China, we are open to go wherever the Church needs us most. With the Church’s permission, through the Office of the Propagation of the Faith, we enlist the support of the church through mission appeals. Whenever possible, we also ask the foundation for money. I am proud to tell this small story of Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill and ask you to be as generous as possible with your prayers and financial support. You and I together are a small part of the global church. By our Baptism and Confirmation, the mission of the Church is our mission. You encounter the disabled, the poor, the uneducated, the seniors who, in fact, need help, here in Wurtsboro. We need to also, in the United States or wherever we are, but also in Korea, Ecuador and China. 

Our foundress, Elizabeth Ann Seton, was born in New York in August of 1774. Two years before Independence Day on July 4, 1776. She grew up as an Episcopalian and was well educated. She married. She had five children. She became Catholic and was ostracized by her religious church. She started the Catholic school system and founded a religious order. She passed on to us an understanding of God’s promise to be always with us. An understanding so deep that it enables us, 150 plus years later, to go to foreign missions, knowing that the Spirit calls us and will be with us in good times and in difficult ones. 

In 1960, at the end of the Korean conflict, four American Sisters traveled to South Korea. These pioneers from western Pennsylvania learned Korean. They accepted the challenge of teaching in an elementary school, which became a high school. Seeing what our Sisters did and hearing our understanding of God’s vocation for us, Korean women joined the Sisters of Charity. Today we have many schools, kindergarten through high school, including a school exclusively for the blind, and multiple schools that focus on children with disability. We have helped runaway girls, innocent victims of domestic and workplace violence. Our Korean province has more than 200 Korea-born members.

In 1980, our Korean region commenced Eunhae School, a school that focuses on children with cerebral palsy and other multiple disabilities. In 1988, the Korean region founded a program for children with developmental disabilities and autism in Yung-chi, in rural northeast China. In 2008, four sisters from the Korean region arrived in Pedro Carbo, in Guayaquil, Ecuador, to take over the NSM school for children with disabilities. They served mostly multiple disabilities but very many children with down syndrome. At Eunhae, in Yung-chi, and Pedro Carbo we are continuing the work we learned in the United States. To assist children with disabilities. In every place, we start the ministry by inviting the parents of the children with disabilities to bring their children to us during the day. We provide physical therapy and education appropriate to the development of the particular child. Our focus is always to maximize the child’s experience of life and contribution to her or his family and society.

When I was in Korea in 1994, Eunhae celebrated its first high school graduation. Today Eunhae graduates have earned university degrees from Seoul National University and Ewha Women’s University. They have returned to Guangju to teach at Eunhae. Eunhae has also established one of the finest bakeries in South Korea. Prime Ministers shop there. It is really very good. But it is staffed and run entirely by graduates from the school. These graduates have also established two sales centers, shops, in the city so that entrepreneurship becomes an acquired skill by these persons with disabilities. 

In Ecuador, these days, the clinic assists mothers who are pregnant or having a child and have young children, as well as other patients. Our Korean sisters serve as nurses, and doctors come from Guayaquil, which is about two hours away, when needed. At NSM, in Ecuador, the older students are also begging for vocational training. They want to support themselves, but they are not quite at that point. We’re still focusing very much on physical therapy and classroom education. There, we’re also very much confronted by the poverty of the surrounding community. We try to share beyond the walls of the school. Every Thursday, the physical therapists and the teacher go to one of the ten home missions that NSM has established to assist adults with cerebral palsy or down syndrome who’ve never had the opportunity for therapy. The NSM community in Ecuador is very generous. Once a year they take time out for the teachers and the older students to take a bus to a distant school in the jungle, two or three hours away. In these one-room schools, there is no physical therapy. The year-round teacher is in communication with us and invites parents from the distant area to come and learn how to care for their children at home. The love and dedication of the parents there, in China and Korea, is tremendous.

In Pedro Carbo we are also confronted by the lack of potable water. Dirty water has been found to be the cause of some of the observed disabilities. Not just potable water but needing water to wash. Our poorest students feel shame and want to stay home so as to hide their need. We provide a snack and lunch for the students. But the shame of coming to school is not just in Ecuador. It existed in Newark to such an extent that one of schools in Newark brought washing machines into the school’s property so that students could wash their clothing and would not have to stay home for lack of clean uniforms.

In Yung-chi, our program is even younger. We started in one apartment. Then it became four apartments that we called, collectively, Sunrise House. There were fourteen teachers and one volunteer to provide education to nearly forty young students - Kindergarten and the lowest grades. Many of the parents in that particular area do not recognize that their children have a disability. They only know that they don’t speak, and they want the children to speak and participate in life. One mother brought a young child - a couple of years old - who could just sit in her lap and eat ice cream. A few years later, this girl, who has Down Syndrome, is able to communicate, smile, able to walk and interact with those around her.

Covid happened everywhere, as it did here. We’ve rolled back a bit, particularly in China. We had to. We are building up our person-to-person programs again in Korea, in China and Ecuador. As you can imagine, it costs money. We try to live as simply as possible. We try to get professionals to donate their time. We must, however, have appropriate equipment and we must build buildings and we must educate our educators. It costs money. So, we look to the global Catholic Church and foundations for resources.

I am very grateful for the opportunity to speak here in your Church. I thank you. And please, be as generous as possible. Everything goes to these missions. In turn, I promise you the daily prayers of the Sisters of Charity. But I can’t leave here without also challenging you to say, “Do not be afraid to encounter the poor in your communities.” They are here with us. Thank you very much.