Dear Friends in Christ,

This weekend’s Gospel about the rich man and Lazarus gives us one of the clearest moral lessons Jesus ever taught. The story is not only about wealth and poverty, but about the position of our hearts before God and our neighbor.

The rich man’s failure was not that he was wealthy, but that he closed his heart to the suffering man at his very doorstep. He looked away, day after day, until it was too late. In contrast, Lazarus—poor, afflicted, and forgotten by the world—was embraced by God for eternity.

The moral of the story is clear: open your heart, open your eyes, and open your hands. Each of us is called to live each day with compassion, generosity, and faith. Salvation is not about what we have, but about how we love. 

This means looking at our daily lives in a new way. We do not need to search far and wide to find opportunities to live out this Gospel. They are already present—in our families, in our
workplaces, in our neighborhoods, and right here in our parish. Every word of encouragement, every act of patience, every choice to forgive, every prayer we offer for another, every welcome we extend to a stranger, every step we take to build peace, and every act of mercy becomes a way of opening ourselves to God’s grace.

This Gospel invites us to pause and ask: Who is the Lazarus at our gate? Perhaps it is a neighbor who is lonely, a family member who needs our forgiveness, a stranger who longs for welcome, or someone quietly struggling right beside us. Christ comes to us in these faces. To serve them is to serve Him.

May this week be for all of us a time to notice, to respond, and to love more deeply. Together, let us become a parish community known not only for our worship, but for our compassion.

In Christ’s Peace,
Fr. Jeff