A good homily is when I come away with a nugget of wisdom, advice or knowledge that I can carry with me throughout the week as I journey toward my heavenly home. My pastor delivered one of these great homilies 4-5 weeks ago. How do I know it was a great homily? I am still carrying it with me! His homily was based on:

The Judgment

³¹ “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. ³² All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; ³³ and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.

³⁴ “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; ³⁶ naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ ³⁷ Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? ³⁸ And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? ³⁹ When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ ⁴⁰ The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’

⁴¹ “Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; ⁴² for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; ⁴³ I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ ⁴⁴ Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not ^[a]take care of You?’ ⁴⁵ Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ ⁴⁶ These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

He started by saying, “I challenge each of us to think about, what if I lived by this creed…

• I believe in feeding the hungry.
• I believe in giving drink to the thirsty.
• I believe in welcoming the stranger.
• I believe in clothing the naked.
• I believe in caring for the sick.
• I believe in visiting the prisoner.

After thinking about the possibility of living by this creed then act upon it.”

I have come to believe we have hundreds of opportunities each and everyday to act upon our belief in this creed. We may have an opportunity to give a bag of clothes to the thrift store, stop wasting water by fixing a drippy faucet, smile at someone on the metro who hasn’t had a smile all day, share a pair of extra mittens, send a card to someone dealing with an illness or stop by with a flower for a shut-in.

St. Theresa of Lisieux said, “Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word; always doing the smallest right and doing it all for love.”

St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”

If each of us did one small act of kindness in love, each day, think of what we could accomplish!