Memorial of Saint Martin of Tours, Bishop

Lectio — The Foreigner Who Returned

Readings for the Memorial of Saint Leo the Great, Pope and Doctor of the Church

“Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?” — Luke 17:11–19

In a few weeks, on Thanksgiving Day, I shall return to this Gospel and meditate upon the word thanks. But today another word catches me by the collar: foreigner. It is a curious thing that ten lepers were cleansed, yet only one returned to Jesus. The nine were not necessarily wicked men. They were doing precisely what they had been told: going to show themselves to the priests. And yet, in their obedience, they may have overlooked the very One who made their healing possible.

The Samaritan was different. As a foreigner, he stood outside the familiar religious boundaries of the others. The priests to whom the nine were going were not his priests in the same sense. Yet I must be careful not to claim more than the Gospel tells me. Perhaps his outsider’s perspective helped him recognize what the others missed: that in Jesus he had encountered something greater than the approval of any institution. He turned around. He fell at the feet of Christ. He gave thanks.

Perhaps wisdom begins when I discover that the most important journey is not the one that wins me admission among the respectable, but the one that brings me back to Jesus.

Meditatio — The Wisdom of Being a Foreigner

Recently I listened to episode 049 of The West Texas Catholic: The Podcast, featuring the robotics team at Holy Cross Catholic Academy. Robotics is a world in which I confess myself a foreigner. What struck me most was the testimony of two veteran students who had embraced being the nerdy outsiders in a school culture where robotics did not enjoy the popularity of more traditional sports. They were astonished to discover that their team had tripled in size.

There is a splendid paradox here, one worthy of G. K. Chesterton: perhaps the wisest way to become popular is to stop trying to be popular at all. Those young people were not pretending to be someone else. They were discovering the joy of becoming who God had created them to be. And in doing so, they made room for others to belong.

I wish I could say I had embraced my own experience of being a foreigner at St. Mary’s Cathedral with such good humor. I have not. For years I have spoken publicly about what I perceive as the consequences of a serious mistake in the life of the Diocese of Amarillo, a mistake I see concretized in the Bishop Matthiesen Religious Education Center. In the course of that controversy, I encountered words from our former bishop that left me feeling excluded from the company of faithful and loyal disciples he described.

I have longed to be accepted. I have wanted to show myself to the priests and be welcomed back into the familiar company of parish life. But perhaps I have become so preoccupied with gaining recognition that I have forgotten the foreigner who turned around and returned to Jesus. Perhaps I have mistaken institutional acceptance for the deeper belonging that only Christ can give.

Saint Paul reminds me that I too have been foolish, disobedient, deceived, and enslaved by desires. I cannot read those words in Titus without recognizing something of my own resentment and envy. Yet the same reading tells me that God’s kindness appeared not because of righteous deeds I had performed, but because of his mercy. The foreigner is saved not by establishing his credentials, but by receiving a gift.

On this Memorial of Saint Martin of Tours and Veterans Day, I remember the soldier who divided his cloak with a beggar at the gates of Amiens. Martin discovered in that apparently insignificant stranger the presence of Christ himself. The man outside the circle of respectability became the occasion of a revelation. Martin did not first demand that the beggar prove his worthiness. He shared what he had.

Here at The Glenn, where I tend the land and its creatures, Laudato si’ reminds me that the fruits of the earth were never intended for the exclusive enjoyment of those who possess the fields. The law of gleaning required landowners to leave something for the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner. Even the edge of a field was meant to be a place of welcome.

Am I leaving such edges in my own heart? Or have I fenced my grievances so tightly that there is no opening through which mercy can enter? A wise guardian knows that a fence exists to protect life, not to make enemies of everyone standing outside it.

Today I hear the psalmist’s promise of verdant pastures and restful waters. I hear Saint Paul’s invitation to give thanks in all circumstances. And I wonder whether the greatest healing I need is not restoration to a particular ministry, but freedom from the need to have my faithfulness publicly acknowledged.

Perhaps I must learn to be a foreigner without becoming a stranger to love.

Oratio — A Prayer with Saint Martin of Tours

Lord Jesus Christ, You welcomed the gratitude of the foreigner and revealed Yourself to Saint Martin in the poverty of a stranger. Teach me the wisdom of returning to You.

Saint Martin of Tours, you who divided your cloak rather than your humanity, pray for me. Help me to recognize Christ in those who stand outside my circle of belonging, and especially in those whose judgments have wounded me.

Forgive me for the times I have desired popularity more than truth, vindication more than reconciliation, and the approval of priests more than the mercy of Christ. Give me courage to follow conscience without bitterness and humility to acknowledge where conscience itself requires further formation.

Make me wise enough to give thanks even while I remain a foreigner. Amen.

Contemplatio — When the Foreigner Becomes a Neighbor

Paragraph 163 of Magnifica humanitas challenges me to consider the relationship between robotics, artificial intelligence, work, and human dignity. It warns that the invisible hand of the market cannot, by itself, guarantee justice in an age of technological transformation. Innovation must be directed toward the common good, social inclusion, and the dignity of every human person.

How fitting that I should encounter this teaching after listening to young robotics enthusiasts at Holy Cross! Their machines may be programmed to accomplish particular tasks, but the students themselves cannot be reduced to their usefulness, popularity, or competitive success. Their dignity precedes every achievement. The wise society does not ask whether the foreigner is sufficiently productive to belong. It asks whether its own arrangements allow every person to flourish.

And I must apply this principle to the Church as well. The Church is not a marketplace in which membership is purchased with conformity, nor a competition in which the popular receive the prizes. It is the Body of Christ, whose members possess dignity not because they have earned approval, but because they have been loved into existence and called by grace.

Yet I must also resist the temptation to make myself the heroic foreigner in every disagreement. Being an outsider does not automatically make me right, any more than holding authority automatically makes another person wrong. The Samaritan’s wisdom was not that he stood apart from the nine. It was that he returned to Christ.

Perhaps the most revolutionary invention is not a robot that can imitate human intelligence, but a human heart wise enough to recognize another person as a neighbor. Saint Martin’s divided cloak accomplished what no machine could guarantee: it transformed a stranger into a brother.

Actio — Synodality and the Courage to Welcome the Foreigner

Today I will practice synodality by listening to someone whose experience of the Church differs from mine, without first demanding that the person agree with my conclusions. I will remember the Holy Cross robotics students, whose willingness to embrace their distinctive gifts helped others find a place alongside them.

As I continue to discern my relationship with the Diocese of Amarillo, I will not confuse stepping away from a dispute with abandoning the Church. Nor will I confuse fidelity to conscience with a license to cultivate resentment. I will leave room for honest dialogue, appropriate accountability, and the possibility of reconciliation, even when the time for such dialogue has not yet arrived.

At The Glenn, I will consider the wisdom of the ancient gleaning laws. Is there something I can share with someone who has less? Is there a gate I have closed too quickly? Is there a person I have treated as a foreigner when Christ has called that person my neighbor?

My synodal question today is simple: How can we become a Church in which the foreigner is not merely tolerated, but heard, welcomed, and invited to walk with us toward Christ?

Song Pairing — Make Your Own Kind of Music

“Make Your Own Kind of Music”, famously recorded by Cass Elliot, captures something of the courageous individuality I heard in the Holy Cross robotics students. There is wisdom in refusing to surrender one’s God-given gifts merely to win the approval of a crowd.

Yet the Gospel adds an important qualification. I must make my own kind of music without forgetting that I belong to a greater choir. The foreigner who returned to Jesus did not sing merely to celebrate himself. His song was thanksgiving. Perhaps my own voice will find its proper harmony when it is offered not for applause, but for the glory of God.

Movie Pairing — The Outsiders

Francis Ford Coppola’s The Outsiders (1983) tells a story of young people divided by social class, loyalty, reputation, and the desperate desire to belong. Its characters discover that the boundaries separating insiders from outsiders are often less substantial than the shared humanity beneath them.

I recognize something of myself in that longing for acceptance. The tragedy of exclusion is real, but so is the temptation to define myself entirely by the people who have rejected me. The Gospel offers another possibility: I need not remain imprisoned by the identity of the outsider. I can return to Christ, whose mercy is not confined by the categories with which human beings divide one another.

Poetic Reflection — The Foreigner’s Thanksgiving

Nine hurried onward, duty in their stride,
One foreigner turned back and knelt beside
The feet of Him whose mercy made him whole,
And found a home no border could control.

A soldier shared his cloak against the cold,
And found the King in one the world passed by;
The wise need neither popularity nor gold
To recognize the Christ before their eye.

I stand outside the gate and long to see
A welcome from the ones I call my own;
Yet perhaps the road of wisdom leads to Thee,
Where no repentant heart remains unknown.

So let me sing, though none applaud my song,
And share the harvest where the strangers roam;
For I am foreign only while I long
For lesser doors than those that lead me home.