Homily given on 22nd May 2025 for the Providence Row 165th Anniversary Mass at Westminster Cathedral.
'Abide in my love.' 'Make your home in me.' In both places, Jesus is saying the same thing: 'Remain with me.' Set your heart in my heart, and you will know true joy.
Where to find his heart, though? In prayer, most certainly. But very much also in the hearts of those who need our love.
When Jesus says, 'Abide in my love,' he adds, 'If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.'
So, what is he saying? Well, he told us, in another place, that his commandments come down essentially to two things: love of God and love of neighbour. And when asked, 'Who is my neighbour?' he went on to explain that my neighbour is the stranger, the hungry, the thirsty, the naked one who has nowhere to lay his or her head.
For these past 165 years, generation after generation of Religious and lay people, clergy too, have pooled their resources to reach out to just such as these - to welcome and encourage and nurture and counsel and signpost and guide those who find themselves on the peripheries, on the margins of society, and who cry for help.
Providence Row is a reminder that God helps people mostly through other people.
'This poor man called; the Lord heard him,' says the Psalmist. Yes, but Jesus helps us understand that it’s mostly through others that the Lord hears their cry.
In Providence Row, we see this writ large: through the help of countless dedicated professionals and volunteers down through the ages, countless men and women have found their cry for help heard and addressed.
Of course, Jesus also dared to say that, when we reach out to one of the least of these, the hungry, the thirsty, the homeless, the estranged, we reach out to him. Pope Francis sought to communicate this same truth in his very first encyclical, Evangelii Gaudium, The Joy of the Gospel when he chose to say that when you touch the wounds of the poor you touch the suffering flesh of Christ.
This same truth Jesus means to communicate when he speaks of the Last Judgment and chooses to say that, when we reach the other side of life, it’ll be those to whom we’ve been most generous who will be the keenest to greet us, saying, 'I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me to drink, I was a stranger and you made welcome.'
And they will want to take us to meet the Lord whom we shall hear tell us, 'Insofar as you did this to one of the least of these, you did it to me.'
Sometimes young people ask me, 'How can I know I’m in the right place to find Jesus?' It’s a good question. I tell them, 'Seek always to be generous; and you’ll find him.' That, surely, is what was behind that mysterious saying of Jesus when he said, 'Where your heart is there will your treasure be also.'
By which he meant, give your heart to others and you will find where I abide.
St Ignatius showed he understood this when he taught his followers to pray first for the grace to be generous. 'Dearest Jesus, teach me to be generous,' he taught them to say. 'Dearest Jesus, teach me to be generous; to serve you as you deserve; to give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to labour and to ask for no reward save that of knowing that I do your will.'
If you seek to be where he abides: seek first to be generous, and with your generosity, you will touch his broken body. We’ve got used, in these first days of Pope Leo’s pontificate, to hear him quoting Augustine, the founder of his order.
St Augustine has a wonderful gift of amplifying the message we find in the teachings of Jesus. A few times already Pope Leo has quoted Augustine saying, 'Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.'
Once more, Augustine confirms what Jesus is saying - that we won’t rest until we go to seek him in those around us who most need him.
We’ll find the place where Jesus abides through our striving to be generous. It occurs to me that generosity understood in this way is precisely what we celebrate today – providential generosity.
Providential; Providence: it’s a good word for us to ruminate on this occasion.
Surely countless people who’ve been helped by Providence Row down the ages must have told themselves – be it on this side of death or the other – 'How providential it was that those good people of Providence Row were there to pick me up when I’d fallen through the net!'
I’m sure that all of us who’ve had the privilege of helping Providence Row – in our faltering, stumbling way - of contributing to its mission, will want very readily to identify with the psalmist, when he cries, 'Not to us, Lord, not to us but to your name give the glory.'
In this Mass, we wish indeed to give all the glory to God – glory for all the graces Divine Providence has worked through Providence Row.
We wish in this Holy Sacrifice of the Mass to commend to God all those, both living and dead, for whom Providence Row has been truly a lifeline and a stay.
We wish humbly in this celebration to thank God for the great privilege of belonging to the unique family which is Providence Row – and which, we pray, he will enable to grow from strength to strength into a 170th, a 175th, a 200th year, by which time most of us will be looking down on this celebration, with even greater thanksgiving, from on high!
