And you were imitators of us and of the Lord,
receiving the Word of God with great affection,
with joy, and becoming a model to all believers.
These are words from Saint Paul
to his beloved Thessalonians.
He uses this word, imitators.
It is a beautiful word.
In the Greek, it is mimetai,
and mimetai is best translated as “model witness.”
We think of imitators or imitation
as a rip-off copy of something,
or a bad copy of something.
Imitation is sort of a lower version of it.
But here, in the biblical term mimetai,
is meant to be like a second version of,
a real second version, an authentic version.
A definition in ancient times for imitation is
to see, to practice, and to become.
For example, we see our parents
then we practice what they do,
for good or for bad.
Then we become our parents.
The irony of it is, we see this for ourselves
and we go, oh my Gosh, my father did that,
or my mother did that,
and I am still doing it.
But that is what we do.
We imitate what we see,
and we practice what we see,
and then we become that.
It is a beautiful way of looking at this Scripture.
Paul is saying that the Thessalonians
were known in all of Greece
for being model disciples to all believers.
Six hundred years ago, in a Dutch monastery,
a monk wrote a devotional
that became the second most read Christian text in the world.
It is called The Imitation of Christ,
and that monk was Thomas à Kempis.
He wrote it for his Augustinian brothers in community.
The intention he writes in the very first chapter:
it is not enough to admire Christ,
because when you admire somebody,
you watch from the distance and you do not engage.
He says, if we want to be disciples of Christ,
then we must imitate Christ.
We must be seers, practicers, and we must then become Christ.
This devotional was used by Saint Ignatius
every day of his life.
Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint Thérèse of Lisieux,
and many more saints used it every day.
I used it every day for years.
I still often read it daily as well.
Sometimes you get modern examples of that.
So, let me bring it down to somebody
maybe closer to us here.
Last weekend, right after the nine o'clock Mass,
I got a call from the son of one of our parishioners, Sue Pierce.
Sue was a regular at daily Mass and Sunday 7:30am Mass.
She had had a massive stroke,
and so they asked me to come to the hospital.
She was completely incapacitated.
It was hard to watch.
She was 92 years old, she was in great health,
and she just had this massive stroke that completely wiped her out.
As soon as she heard my voice,
she opened her eyes and recognized me,
but then that was all there was.
It was just a recognition.
We gave her the last rites and we said our goodbyes.
She was transferred back to her home at The Terraces
for what they call comfort care, or hospice care.
When she came back, I told her son,
a couple of people will want to come by and say goodbye.
He said, oh, that will be fine.
What was amazing about Sue
is that she had this ability to touch people
in ways that endeared her.
So, for two days, there was a steady stream of people who came by,
just for a couple of minutes, and said goodbye.
The reason why is because
Sue saw Christ in her life,
and she had practiced what she saw
and became Christ to others.
She took communion to the sick in the hospital,
to the homebound, even at 92, still doing it up until last week.
And when it was her time to go, of course, everybody came,
because they saw Christ in her,
because she had imitated Christ.
She became the icon of Christ to them.
She was what we celebrate at Easter,
what we call the light of Christ.
That is what she was for so many people.
She was truly the light shining in the midst of a darkened world.
People looked to her as a model because she was like that.
Now, she was not perfect, do not get me wrong,
but she was the light of Christ to many.
I am hoping that there is somebody in your life,
a mother, a father, a grandmother, a grandfather,
an uncle, somebody who has modeled that to you.
Maybe they are still alive,
or maybe they have passed on,
but you remember them.
You think, I want to be just like that.
I want to imitate that person.
See, that is what we are seeking:
people to imitate.
If you do not have that person in your life,
I am hoping that the reason we come here together each Sunday
is that we find somebody among us
who is that light in the midst of the darkness,
that imitator of Christ.
But truth be told, we are all called to be that.
Not just one or two of us.
Every one of us is called.
To be honest with you,
you parents who are raising your children,
that is what you are doing already.
That is your primary vocation:
to raise your children in such a way
that they want to imitate you,
that they will see what they see,
and they will practice what they see,
and then they will become what they have practiced.
Hopefully that is an icon of Christ.
That is your primary vocation in life to your children.
The Scripture today tells us that is not enough.
In the Gospel, they are trying to catch Jesus.
What is the most important commandment?
They were not really interested in the answer,
because they were the scholars of the law.
They knew what the answer was—it was the Shema.
That is this prayer:
love the Lord your God with all your mind,
with all your heart, with all your soul.
It was so important that they wrote it on a scroll,
and they would tie it to their arms here.
They would tie it to their forehead.
They would pray it twice a day, morning and evening,
to never let it leave their mind.
What Jesus does, He ties the summation of all the prophets,
the second commandment, which is love your neighbor as yourself.
He ties them together.
You see, you cannot love God
if you are not willing to love your neighbor.
That stumped them.
That is what we believe as Christians.
These two are tied together.
You cannot love God and not love your neighbor.
Now, your neighbor is not just your children.
They are, of course.
But that is the call to action:
we are called to be that model, witness, and imitator
beyond just your immediate family,
beyond the ones whom we like,
the people who are close to us.
We are called to be imitators of Christ
to those who are further away.
The first reading gives us an example of who those are.
This is the quintessential of the Old Testament:
the widows, the orphans, and the immigrants.
Back in ancient times,
they were the most vulnerable in society.
If you want to know how a society was,
tell me how they treat those three groups,
and I will tell you what they look like.
My friends, it has not changed much in 2,000 years.
How we treat our widows, and our orphans, and our immigrants
is just as important today.
We cannot shrink from this.
We have policies that are going against what the gospel is saying.
We need to speak up,
and we need to act in accordance with the gospel.
That is what we are called to do.
We are called to be imitators of Christ.
What would Christ have us do for the widows?
Do exactly what Sue did.
Go out and visit them, and give them communion,
and be present to them.
And the orphans, to care for the orphans,
and the immigrants, to care for them, to love them,
to be an icon of Christ to them.
That is what Christ wants us to do.
He wants us to see what He did,
to practice what He did,
and to become what He is.
That is what we are called to do.
How do we do that in our own daily life?
It is not like we all have tons of time
to figure out where to go.
For example, in two weekends,
on the 7th and 8th of November,
we are putting on a food packing event
with Cross Catholic Outreach.
Everyone just thinks it is just another event.
We are going to be packing 60,000 meals.
This is not just an ordinary activity.
This is a way we practice together what our faith is about.
So, I ask you to sign up for that.
This is how we teach our children how to practice.
We do it with them.
We pack a couple of meals,
and together we build community.
But what we are doing is, we are learning to care.
We are learning to care for people we will never see,
but who will be hungry enough for that meal.
That is why we are doing it.
It is a reminder to us
that we want to become what we see and what we practice.
That is just one example.
There are many other examples of what we are called to do.
Another example is the parish retreat.
We got to think and reflect on our discipleship.
That is why we have these days of prayer,
and we only do it once a year:
this annual retreat next weekend.
The reason we do that is
we have to pause from the activities
that we endlessly fill our lives with,
to pray, and to listen to our hearts,
and to listen to God,
and to ask ourselves,
how do I imitate Christ in my life?
Everyone has a slightly different way.
So, we need to come to a retreat
and learn and practice listening to God,
so that we can hear the Scriptures today
and know what it means to love one another,
and to love our neighbor as ourself.
So, listen again to what Saint Paul said to the Thessalonians:
And you were imitators of us and of the Lord,
receiving the Word of God with great affection,
with joy, and becoming a model to all believers.