“Welcome & Listen”

A Homily for the 4th Sunday of Easter 2025

In the Acts of the Apostles today, Paul and Barnabas announce: “We now turn to the Gentiles (or the Nations)!” And how do the Gentiles or the Nations respond? Well, they respond just as any person or group who has felt excluded, forgotten, unseen, unheard, or outside might respond. Luke tells us: “The Gentiles were delighted when they heard this!”

Take a moment and reach back into your own memory. Recall a time when you felt excluded, forgotten, unseen, unheard and someone turned to you just as Paul and Barnabas turned to the Gentiles. Someone chose YOU. Someone included YOU. Someone invited YOU. Someone heard YOU. Someone saw YOU! The human response in such situations, I believe, is always the same and is always automatic: Delight surges up in us. And unlike the dualistic mindset of the Acts passage today, where it appears the Gentiles can only be included if the Jews are rejected… the real gift of that irrepressible delight is that it teaches us EVERYONE BELONGS!

Amid all the futile speculation over the recent Conclave (which concluded surprisingly in the election of Pope Leo XIV), I came upon an interview by CBS News’ Nora O’Donnell with the Czech-born, Canadian Cardinal Michael Czerny, SJ. And, of course, in the interview, O’Donnell wanted Czerny to articulate what he felt was the legacy of Pope Francis. And Czerny landed on two words that really moved me. He described not only the legacy of Francis, but the core ministry of the Church in the world going forward as to “Welcome & Listen.”

The Cardinal went on to say: “If we are going to survive as a human family we need to Welcome and Listen to one another.” And here O’Donnell, with good intentions, interjected: “Yes, it is important to be good listeners.” But surprisingly Czerny gently pushed back and said, “No, it is not just being a good listener, it is about learning to listen even when it hurts (and maybe especially when it hurts) and then… listening some more!”

It is only by cultivating a posture of relentless welcome and ruthless listening (even when it hurts and especially when it hurts) that we as Church and we as individual Christians can witness to the Truth, who is Christ himself. And that Truth, in Christ, is this: There has NEVER been an Us vs. a Them, there has NEVER been Insiders vs. Outsiders, there has NEVER been the Included vs. the Excluded. We do not have to reject this one to accept that one. Jesus tells us again today: “The Father and I are One” and we only exist to our fullest when we realize we are included in that ONENESS!

As Thomas Merton, late in his own life, once wrote: “The deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion. It is wordless. It is beyond words, and it is beyond speech, and it is beyond concept. Not that we discover a new unity. We discover an older unity. My dear brothers and sisters, we are already one. But we imagine that we are not. So what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are.”

That is the DELIGHT the Gentiles felt when Paul and Barnabas turned to them. That is the DELIGHT we have each known in some way when someone in our life turned to us. And it is a DELIGHT that obliterates the dualistic mindset that lies to us, telling us that unity or communion, can only be achieved if this person or that group is excluded!

The Psalmist remind us today: WE are God’s people… the Visionary, John, in the Book of Revelation, reminds us today: WE are a great multitude which NO ONE can count from every nation, race, people and tongue. But, as Merton reminds us: WE too often imagine that WE are NOT!

The human family will not survive if we, as Church and as individual Christians, do not learn to imagine a little better, a little broader, a little more belovedly. If we do not learn to Welcome & Listen.

We can all Welcome and we can all Listen. And when we do we will once again know the delight of that “original unity” that has always been ours. And that delight is contagious and as it mounts it will draw us into the Truth of what Jesus came to teach us: WE are already One! And we cannot survive, we can’t even fully exist day to day, outside that ONENESS. It’s always been ours. We just need to be willing to imagine a little differently! And Welcome & Listen a little more boldly!

May our new Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, continue to lead us along this path of unity and peace!