"Truly I say to you, Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these my brothers, you have done it to me"

"To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."

Mark 12:33

That this is not as easy as it seems was very clear at Mass today. Today i had a seat more in the back of the church. Below is a picture of the church where i am going and it will illustrate why i change places. As you can see the image of Jesus Crucified is high up, thus best visible in the back. It is a choice though because outside the picture on the left and right are the altars dedicated to the Blessed Virgin and the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Even in the back one still has to look up.

Just before the start of the Mass a homeless woman came in. Homeless and clearly mentally ill. There is also a small altar in the back and she started to burn candles one by one. Then she started praying and bowing with her hands folded in devotion. From there she looked around and went to the altar of the Blessed Virgin in the front. Now a woman told me she comes every week and apparently i must have missed her on earlier occasions due to my more in-the-front postion in the church. The woman i talked and others were apparently a bit worried about the candles being lit and she talked about her more as a disturbance.

I couldn't help to feel ashamed in my nice clothes and for what she said about this woman. I looked to our Crucified Jesus and then to this woman. I remember i thought "What would Jesus have done?" He would have loved her, gone up to her. He would have reminded us to love our neighbors as ourselves and reminded us of this image of devotion in all it's simplicity.

This image reminds me of some images of poverty in Argentina. On my daily walk i would always encounter the same ones begging for some money for food. The blind man in front of the back with his child on his arm holding up a coffee mug, the man in the wheelchair who losts his legs in front of the basilica, the woman on the stairs when you come out of the subway at Plaza de Mayo, the man with his dog in front of the supermarket who was more concerned about the wellbeing of his dog than of his own and the old woman who stands out most for me. This angelic look she had. Never complaining and always smiling. Last time i visited Argentina she wasn't sitting there anymore. I can only pray God took her with Him.

The burned offerings where Mark talked about. The burning of incense during Mass which came most close in this occasion. The woman always wearing the same black and the black straw hat to which this blog is dedicated. La Povera Gemma, the one who would rather give her own food to the poor. We cannot help everyone but we can we do what we can. And what we always can do is pray for someone and in the case of this particular homeless woman rejoice for her dedication.

I would like to end with an Ave Maria for her:

Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum;
benedicta tu in mulieribus,
et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus.
Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus,
nunc et in hora mortis nostrae.

Amen