Paul Babic is a second-year MDiv student at the Regis St. Michael’s Faculty of Theology with a background in Philosophy and Religious Studies from McMaster University. He also works as the Projects Officer in the Office of the President at Regis College. With his MDiv, he hopes to help and serve those “who may feel as though God has abandoned them.” In his spare time, he enjoys blogging, copious quantities of coffee, good food, good conversations with friends, and long walks
I don’t normally talk about my religious experiences—much as I do talk about religion—but I thought today I would share one with you. This happened maybe three years ago now as I was walking around my (then) home of Hamilton. Like many Canadian cities, Hamilton has started to look a bit rough around the edges: there are people struggling with addiction, homelessness, and poverty. If you walk through a city in North America today, you’ll probably see them. Maybe you even drop a coin in their cup, but I’ll bet most times you walk past them as I do, too.
So, there I was on a beautiful summer day, walking through downtown Hamilton, when a homeless man came up to me for change. At first, I simply passed him by with the twinge of guilt I normally feel when confronted by the inequities of modern society. But then as I was passing, I looked closer, and bright as the sun, I felt like I was looking at the face of Jesus Christ. Not the Jesus you see in churches, mind you. In fact, it’s not as though his face had changed at all, and yet my perception of it did. There was a disarming peace or innocence about him that I couldn’t ignore. So, I gave him some money and wished him well. Seeing Jesus in that man on the street, I am reminded of Christ’s words:
Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.
—Matthew 25:45
That encounter has stayed with me, and I think about it especially now, as we welcome a new pope—Leo XIV—whose words echo that same call to know Christ in the suffering and unseen. One sister I have the pleasure of knowing thought that we might be in for a Francis II. She was right in a way: Robert Prevost’s middle name is Francis. But for his papal name, he chose Leo, perhaps as a call-back to Leo XIII, who famously wrote Rerum Novarum, an encyclical on capital and labour. Writing at the onset of modern industrial capitalism, Leo XIII decried the indignities wrought by the economic system of his day. And so, in our era of once-again rising wealth inequality, I find this call-back to our last Pope Leo rather timely.
As Catholics, we believe that all human beings are dignified by the image of God which they bear. And while this may be a profound truth, we are reminded time and again in Scripture that theory without praxis is not enough:
Those who say, “I love God,” and hate a brother or sister are liars, for those who do not love a brother or sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.
—1 John 4:20
When I first heard this verse in the pew, I perked up a bit. Such a revelation to be told, as one in search of God, to begin by loving those you can see. By loving others, we also love God. Thus, remembering the dignity of our fellow human beings, Pope Leo said at his inaugural Mass:
In this our time, we still see too much discord, too many wounds caused by hatred, violence, prejudice, the fear of difference, and an economic paradigm that exploits the Earth’s resources and marginalizes the poorest. For our part, we want to be a small leaven of unity, communion and fraternity within the world. We want to say to the world, with humility and joy: Look to Christ! Come closer to him! Welcome his word that enlightens and consoles! Listen to his offer of love and become his one family: in the one Christ, we are one.
Now, as I reflect on Pope Leo’s words, I remember that man and the many others just like him. Dare we seek Christ in the marginalized of our world? Do we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, visit the imprisoned, and—most difficultly—listen to their stories, as Jesus had asked? It’s my great expectation that with this new papacy that is precisely what we are being invited to do.
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