1st Advent - A’16
“Who Is Invisible To Jesus?”
Fr. Jeff Nicolas
I bet the same words stick in your mind as do in mine from today’s Gospel…one is taken and one is left. “One is taken and one is left…” how can this be if our God is all-loving? Its as if the one who is left is invisible to Jesus.
This reminds me of a documentary I saw entitled, “The Invisible Chapel.” This documentary chronicled the story of some Mexican construction workers in California. (I think of them as modern day Samaritans.) The long and short of the documentary is that the builders of a huge subdivision delighted in using the lower paid Mexican labor for the menial tasks they could not get local workers to do, as did the local home buyers who got their homes at a cheaper price because of them.
The Mexican workers lived in tents and lean-tos in an uninhabitable wooded area nearby the under-construction subdivision. They built an open-air chapel in those woods for themselves in order to celebrate Mass with the help of a local Catholic parish. The chapel wasn’t much to look at, but they had a small shrine to Our Lady, their prayer was fervent, and their participation joyful.
In the end they were driven out and their chapel destroyed because once most of the construction of the large homes was done, the owners thought the presence of the shanty chapel would cause their property values to go down. One husband and wife homeowner even found the Mexican workers’ camp, and while the men were away building new homes for the new subdivision, this couple trashed and slashed the few belongings of the Mexican workers. They tore up their blankets, ripped apart their tarps, and shredded their few pieces of clothing and boots.
The documentary ended with this small Catholic assembly of Mexican believers starting over with another makeshift open-air chapel on the nearby farm of a non-Christian man who simply thought the local’s treatment of these foreign workers was wrong.
In this true story I ask myself, who does Jesus see, and who is invisible to him?
Perhaps you know what it is like to be invisible. I do. You see, I grew up in J-town attending public schools through the eighth grade. Around my family and a small handful of friends I was outgoing, but otherwise tended to keep to myself. Lets just say I was a little “awkward.” In the ninth grade my parents sent me to Trinity High School because they feared for their shy son’s safety with the inauguration of bussing. In a class of over 300 I knew no one for they all came from other Catholic grade schools or areas of town. For the first month and a half of school I ate lunch by myself… I was isolated, embarrassed, lonely. I was invisible.
To this day I remain grateful to one student, Pat McClure, who one day at lunch at the urging of his mother (who my mother had talked to) invited me to come sit with him and a small gang of kids from St. Edward. I was finally SEEN, and when we invisible people are seen by another a bond is forged like no other. All people want and deserve to be seen for who they are; no one should ever have to be invisible.
Something Deacon Jerry preached last weekend makes me think this is what Jesus experienced on the throne of his cross. In the midst of the shame, ridicule, and desertion Jesus was engulfed within throughout his passion and crucifixion, one person saw him for who he was… the good thief being crucified next to him. Unlike the other thief being crucified on the other side of Jesus to whom Jesus was invisible, the good thief SAW Jesus and in seeing him made just one request, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.” In that moment, when Jesus was invisible to everyone else, that good thief gave him the one gift he needed the most… he SAW Jesus. I believe Jesus’ heart busted with gratitude as he said, “This day you will be with me in paradise!”
Thus todays’ Gospel came to pass… one is taken and one is left. But not because the one left is invisible to Jesus, but Jesus is invisible to him.
Our season of Advent is all about preparing for the coming of the Lord. This means we must learn to see Jesus in our midst, especially in the “invisible” people around us. Pray for the vision of Jesus so that when the time is right, Jesus will bring you to paradise. Be the one taken, not the one left.