ARCHDIOCESE OF PHILADELPHIA

Dear brother Priests and Deacons,
Dear Friends, and in particular you, Little Sisters of the Poor,

It is a joy to welcome you this afternoon to the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul as we gather in thanksgiving for the canonization of Saint Mary of the Cross, born Jeanne Jugan.  In her own words:  “Blessed be God.  Thank you, my God.  Glory be to God.”

The reading from the Gospel of Saint Mark, proclaimed only a few moments ago, tells us that as Jesus was leaving the city of Jericho, with a sizeable crowd, a blind man sat by the side of the road begging. Jericho was an historic center of commerce. It was the marketplace city, the place where deals could be made. It was a city where business quickly turned shady. The buying and selling, trading and bargaining was known to have an edge: an edge that would cast the vulnerable to the sidelines rather quickly. Saint Ambrose tells us that “Jericho is an image of this world,” which Adam descended to “by the mistake of his transgression ...” (Exposition of the Holy Gospel According to Saint Luke with Fragments on the Prophecy of Isaias, 262-263;7:73).

Jericho thus represents the effects of sin in the world: the city of strife and cunning which takes advantage of the poor and the weak. Such a city always has its center and its margins, those who defraud and those who suffer, the crowd that plunders and takes advantage, especially of the weak and vulnerable. Sin always attempts to reduce the meaning and worth of the human person.

The Gospel tells us that at the edge of this city there was a blind beggar. His name was Bartimaeus, which means, “the son of fear.” He represents all those who live on the margins, whom society has pressured and pushed aside so that they now live in fear. As Jesus departs Jericho, He comes close to those who have literally been cast aside, who beg there on the outskirts, at the city gate: those who have been declared unworthy, unprofitable, and a burden to progress, those who have been left, literally, out in the cold.

On a winter’s evening in Brittany, France a young woman set out into the cold of the city night. And she discovered the people on the margins. She met those whom society had cast aside and who lived in fear. Jeanne Jugan was that young woman, and on that cold evening she met a blind and infirm elderly woman who was begging and had no one to care for her. Jeanne Jugan met that blind beggar at the edge of the city. She was in the same situation as was Jesus.

It is exactly to those on the edge and at the margins that the presence of Jesus is made known. The blind man of Jericho heard Jesus was passing by, and the blind man calls out. The crowd tells him to be quiet. Again, that crowd! The ones who put the blind man at the margins now want to keep him there. But the blind man calls again: “Son of David, have pity on me!” The son of fear is calling on the Son of David. And the Lord hears him. Jeanne Jugan went out into the city and found a blind beggar. She carried the woman home and placed her in her own bed. This blind and elderly woman, brought in by Jeanne Jugan, and indeed the entire Church, could now call out on that winter’s night in France, with the Prophet Jeremiah in the words of the first reading today: “The Lord has delivered his people” (Jer 31:7).  Saint Jeanne Jugan had found Christ Himself.

That night in France, after she gave her bed to the poor elderly woman, Jeanne slept in the attic. She continued to seek out those who needed assistance. The poor began to come to her door. Soon, other women came to help her care for the poor. They went door to door begging for alms. The religious community of the Little Sisters of the poor was born.

The work spread, and Jeanne Jugan came even closer to the Cross:  through the pain caused by ambition on the part of others she was cast aside from the leadership of the community she founded, and was sent out to beg for the community. Twenty-seven years later, when she died, some of the new young Sisters did not even know she was the Foundress of the community.  Not only did God choose her to be his instrument in the world, but God purified her in a deeply interior way. She shared intimably in the sufferings of the Cross of Jesus.

The Little Sisters of the Poor profess the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. In addition to the evangelical counsels, the Sisters also profess a fourth vow, that of hospitality. The vow of hospitality serves to highlight the presence of Jesus in the weakest and most vulnerable as borne out by the words of Jesus: “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me” (Mt 25:40).  Saint Jeanne Jugan took to heart the words of the author of the Letter to the Hebrews: “Do not neglect hospitality, for through it some have unknowlingly entertained angels” (Heb 13:2). In their hospitality, the Sisters imitate the example of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who made herself totally available to God.

And today, we look to the work that continued from that cold, dark night. The work of the Little Sisters of the Poor extends now to include over 200 care residences throughout 32 countries, serving today over thirteen thousand residents. The Lay Association numbers over 2,000 members. Currently over 2,700 sisters practice the corporal works of mercy in a preeminent manner to the elderly and the poor. A few moments ago we heard the Lord promise through the prophet Jeremiah: “I will gather them from the ends of the world, with the blind and the lame in their midst … they shall return as an immense throng….  I will console and guide them” (Jer 31:8b-9a).  Today, we give thanks to Almighty God that he called Saint Jeanne Jugan and the Little Sisters of the Poor to be His humble instrument so as to fulfill His great promise pronounced through the prophet Jeremiah.

The community of the Little Sisters of the Poor relied, as it still does, on God’s providence through the generosity of others. Saint Jeanne Jugan’s sufferings served to further illumine the simplicity, humility and generosity that characterize the life and ministry of the Little Sisters of the Poor. Their apostolate of welcoming and caring for the elderly poor emerges from the charism of a Foundress who knew the streets of the Jericho of her day, who knew the corners of destitution and the alley ways of pain, and who had allowed the humility of Jesus to reach the very deepest places of her heart.

It seems that every time and place, every generation of world history has its Jericho. The world so often attempts to measure people by gauging their profit, success, popularity, productivity or bottom-line. And those measurements seem to reduce, or even outright dismiss, the inherent dignity of the human person. In response, God does not send us policies. He does not send us quick-fixes. He sends us His Son. And His Son sends us His Saints. The actions of the Saint, because he or she adheres so closely to Christ, become timeless. The Saint, inevitably, can speak to any and to every age of world history. Saint Jeanne Jugan, this heroic woman of nineteenth-century France, addresses our own age with extraordinary perception and precision. She sees through the cold and darkness of our night, just as she did through that night long ago. She sees that the world of our day, too, has its bitter margins. It has identified those who are to be cast aside. For almost forty years, our age has declared, in policy and action, the dignity of the child in the womb as non-existent. That same disregard that threatens human life at its beginning, some would extend to threaten human life in its advanced stages. Some seek to quantify and define the average life span and actually seem to suggest that a person beyond this span, who may encounter sickness, disability and disease, is somehow a burden on society.

Saint Jeanne Jugan raises her voice today. Her message comes to us with the same clarity and persistence with which she journeyed out in that cold and dark evening on hundred and seventy years ago. She and the members of her community proclaim clearly and insistently that the elderly, and all human persons, have inviolable dignity. The prophetic actions of the heroic virtue of this woman of nineteenth-century France proclaim to the world of the twenty-first century that all forms of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are, no matter what the circumstances, absolute offenses against the inherent dignity of the human person. Saint Jeanne Jugan shows even the world of today another way: the way of true humanity, which is the way of Jesus!

Our age seems to be so impatient, and even dismissive with the elderly. In the rush and busyness we often miss what the elderly teach us. The elderly are the ones who are truly wise. They have lived through the years of work, dedication to family life, to society, and to the Church. Many have sacrificed in heroic ways, in ways they never would have expected. They have absorbed a seasoned and advanced wisdom that does not come through politics, cannot be fully earned through formal education alone, and is not garnered simply through reading words on a page. The Servant of God Pope John Paul II, in his Letter to the Elderly, stated, “There is an urgent need to recover a correct perspective on life as a whole. The correct perspective is that of eternity, for which life at every phase is a meaningful preparation. Old age too has a proper role to play in this process of gradual maturing along the path to eternity. And this process of maturing cannot but benefit the larger society of which the elderly person is a part. Elderly people help us to see human affairs with greater wisdom, because life's vicissitudes have brought them knowledge and maturity. They are the guardians of our collective memory, and thus the privileged interpreters of that body of ideals and common values which support and guide life in society” (Letter to the Elderly, 10).

My brothers and sisters: the elderly are God’s select gift to those who search for what really matters in life. The eyes of the elderly have seen so much, and are eager to see someone new and to share their story. The stories and memories of the elderly give life and provide direction. Without the elderly we do not know the direction to the future. To treasure the elderly is to treasure the faithfulness of God. As our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI said of Saint Jeanne Jugan in his homily during the Mass of Canonization on October 11, “Her charism is always relevant, while so many aged persons suffer different types of poverty and solitude, sometimes even abandoned by their families. The spirit of hospitality and fraternal love, founded on limitless trust in Providence, which Jeanne Jugan drew from the Beatitudes, illuminated her whole existence. The evangelical impulse is followed today throughout the world in the Congregation of the Little Sisters of the Poor, which she founded and which bears witness to her following the mercy of God and the compassionate love of the Heart of Jesus for the littlest ones.”

In the Gospel reading of today, we may easily miss the apparently small detail that Jesus does not Himself physically go over to Bartimaeus. Instead, Jesus calls Bartimaeus from the side of the road, from the margins, onto the road, to the center, to Jesus Himself. Jesus restored Bartimaeus to his place of dignity. Saint Clement of Alexandria tells us that “The commandment of the Lord shines clearly,  enlightening the eyes” (Exhortation to the Greeks, II).  This is the light that led Bartimaeus. The Gospel tells us that Bartimaeus “received his sight and followed Jesus on the way” (Mk 10:52). This same light led Saint Jeanne Jugan to the poor and the elderly. There, she found Christ.

And now, that light extends throughout the world through the work of the Little Sisters of the Poor. We are most blessed that in the providence of God, the Little Sisters of the Poor serve here in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia at Holy Family Home located on Chester Avenue.  For over 140 years the Sisters have witnessed to the Way that is Jesus by their faithful and steadfast service to the elderly.

 Saint Jeanne Jugan, now and forever a Saint of the universal Church, calls us to the Way that is Jesus. May we respond, under the care of our Blessed Mother Mary, with the humility that filled the life of this great Foundress. And may Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit, lead us to His Father, that we may all become citizens of the new and eternal Jerusalem.  Amen.