I was recently part of a class where a fellow student shared photos of daily life in her adopted Eastern country. There were many images of priests with incense, offering blessings for just about everything.  And lots of little altars: not just in temples, but in everyday places. Homes, marketplaces, schools.

Something we lack in the West is daily, tangible practices and touch-points which reconnect us with our Source.  For many, it’s a once-a-week, -quarter or -year thing, where a visit to a temple, church, synagogue or other meeting place is the only connection point.

Lived like that our religious life or spirituality can become more a head thing than a heart thing. Something outside ourselves and in another place. Perhaps Barbara Brown Taylor’s observation hits close to home; “Do we build God a house so that we can choose when to go see God? Do we build God a house in lieu of having God stay at ours?”  (An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith)

If you’d like to experience more of God as a daily thing, a simple step might be to create an altar at home. Visual imagery has power to keep us connected with what matters to us, and altars are a lovely way to infuse our daily life with spiritual touch-points.

The English words ‘altar’ and ‘altitude’ both come from the Latin root altare, which means elevated or raised up. So an altar may be any place – including a sacred space in our homes – which we set apart to raise up what we value.

Have a look around your home and don’t be surprised if you find unintentional altars already in place. It may be a collection of trophies on a mantelpiece, a collage of photos on a wall, or a special collection in a cabinet. These are unintentional altars, and reflect things we value in life such as achievements, friends and family, collections.

If however we see an altar as a sacred space, a resource for spiritual reflection, growth, serenity and commitments, then the creation of one might be more intentional.

How to create an altar

Consider what you already have that could be the basis of an altar. Part of a dresser cabinet, a mantelpiece, one shelf in a bookcase. Will you want to spend any length of time at the altar, seated, kneeling, standing, in a space removed from the rest of the house? Or will it be more a visual reminder as you go about your daily routine?

You are about to create an intentional altar, so give it some thought. But access your right brain for this one. Tell your rational, logical, sequential left brain to have a little nap. Then use your intuitive, emotive, creative part of the brain to discern what you need.

Close your eyes and imagine spending time with God. What is it you are looking for? Can you name the experience?  Imagine what that communing connecting time looks like, feels like, tastes like, smells like – for you. For an altar to be useful (ie; you want to use it) it must be meaningful to you.

As you hold in your mind those meaningful images, sounds, symbols and scents, wander through your home and find items which represent those things for you. A silk scarf, straw mat, timber tray, candles, poetry or quotes, bell or gong, bowl of water, sand, stones, a cushion, a plant . . . you may even wish to create a drawing, paint a sheet of paper or cardboard a specific colour or pattern, whatever arises when you imagine communing with the Creator.

Arrange the items in a way that seems pleasing to you. Consider if any items invite a ritual to signify sacred space – lighting a candle, chiming a bell, raking sand, sniffing a scent. From your own personal imagery and symbolism you will create an altar with practices which are meaningful to you.
In Landscapes of the Soul: A Spirituality of Places, Robert Hamma refers to ‘thin places’ from the Celtic tradition as “places where the gulf between God and us is narrowed.”

May your altar be a thin place.

©2010 Kel of the X facta

Lent has us on a journey to the death and resurrection of Christ. A profound journey, which we traditionally use to focus ourselves through prayer, self-denial and various opportunities for reflection and confession, to prepare us for the event of Easter – And in doing so make that event more meaningful to us.

It’s good, before Lent begins, to consider how we might best prepare ourselves for Lent. Rather than just running with the traditions of our church, or simply denying ourselves a foodstuff (often chocolate!), we can pause and consider what will create the most meaningful lent for us.

First, let’s consider what Lent’s about and how we can best respond:

1.Creating opportunities to remember.

It’s easy to forget the important things in life when you’re busy, as we all so often are. Lent and its various rituals, especially those around self-denial, give us a chance to say to ourselves “Yes, that’s right, we’re on a journey with Christ to Easter…” By choosing to give up something that we usually enjoyed regularly, or by fixing times to pray and reflect, we create space to think about and talk to God, and remember Jesus’ life and sacrifice.

2.Simplifying our lives

By removing something from our lives gives us a chance to reflect on our priorities, and think about how we could live more simple lives. How we could give more to others and working out what we really do need, rather than what we think we do. And by creating simple rituals of prayer and reflection allow for simple rhythms to our days, and slow us down to create more space for God to work.

So what are some ways to help us discover our own Lent in a way which is meaningful and manageable? Here’s a few questions to get started with:

• What’s something in your daily routine that you could do without? Sure, you might enjoy it, but you know you don’t ‘need’ it.
• Will you be worse off without it for just over a month? It’s not that long…
• Is this a good chance to see if your life is any ‘worse’ without it? So many of our needs are in many ways just ‘what we’re used to’.
• Will it inconvenience heavily on other people… If it’s going to mean my partner has to cook two meals, or is going to impact heavily on other people, perhaps another approach might be better.
• Am I robbing myself of a really important joy here? Does what I’m giving up mean less family time or fun with others? That might not always be the best for a ‘personal’ lent journey.
• How could my life be ’simpler’?

And of course, Lent is more than just about sacrifice:

• How can I build space for prayer, reading and reflection into my usual day?
• Consider one of those alarms that gives a small beep every hour. Use it to say a small prayer or reflection, or simply to remind yourself of God and Jesus’ journey to the cross.
• Gather a small group of people to travel a Lenten journey together. Create times together to pray too, whether you’re together or not.
• Can I actively aim to do something over this period too? Could I raise money for a particular cause (perhaps through what I’m sacrificing?) or dedicate some time each week for a project or program. Perhaps Lent could be about starting some good rituals as much as stripping yourself of unnecessary or unhelpful ones.

May your Lent be a personal, meaningful, rich experience… and perhaps the start of something to last even longer. May God use these days to speak to us and our lives….

So, what will you be doing this Lent? Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments!

One of the most effective ways of loving someone else, I believe, is to truly ‘be with them’. And yet it’s something that probably few of us ever do, even when we might have made time to spend with someone, and know that we care deeply about them. It’s hard not to bring our own lives and issues into a conversation. I know that I’m always tempted in a conversation to say things which will bring it around to discussing the stuff I want to, that which will serve me and make me feel better. But that’s being insincere to the person who, if we love them, we should want to give our time and attention to.

I’m sure we all know what it’s like to talk to someone who doesn’t really seem there. It’s frustrating, confusing and disappointing, and even though they’ve made time for you you do end up feeling like saying “Look, let’s do this another time…”  Unfortunately, we probably also do this most to the ones we love most. I’m sure every married person out there is guilty of ‘listening’ to their partners stories while really watching the TV or thinking about something else…

Try this for an exercise the next time you meet someone. Turn your phone off. Take your watch off. And just before you meet them say to yourself  “This period of time is about them. My issues and concerns can wait for another time. Let me listen to them intently and purposefully. Let me only talk about myself if it helps them or they ask. Let my interest and concern and commitment to them show that I love them.” I think you’ll be surprised at what happens in that conversation and time with them compared to if you were just ‘there but not really there for them’.

I recall some research done regarding communications, where in a university lecture they put a bunch of people in the front row. In one lecture they were told to look bored and uninterested, doodle, pass notes, etc. In the second they were told to listen intently, nod, pay close attention and clearly make notes relating to the class… The difference in the lecturer’s performance was remarkable. In the second he was more animated, relaxed, informative and entertaining…. So imagine what that could mean for your personal relationships.

To be on the receiving end of such attention is to experience a gift of love. I remember once during a long evening chat with a friend, who pulled her chair up close to where I was and sat there leaning forwards, listening intently to what I had to say. It was something that stuck in my mind as such a generous and amazing gift. (OK, later on I discovered that she was sitting so intently and leaning that way because she was suffering some indigestion problems, but still!).

See who you can offer this gift to.

I think this is also an gift we can give to God. Just as we spend our time with others thinking about things other than them, no doubt in our time with God (however we create that) we may spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about what we want to do after this, or putting our own issues first and contemplating how God might give us the answer we want rather than just letting him speak for himself…

Time is an issue which we don’t explicitly discuss much in Christian contexts. I’m sure we all have heard many sermons discussing money, the love of money, and the importance of holding our finances loosely so as to allow God to use it. But we don’t hear many conversations saying the same of time. Even in the secular world, with the many books written on the issue of time and time management, the focus tends to be on ‘achieving more with the time we have’ rather than ‘using the time we have more wisely’ in this case for the sake of God and others.

When we look at the life of Christ, it is time that was his greatest resource. He used his (relatively limited) time generously and freely – often just being with other people, enjoying and sharing hospitality, walking and conversing with his disciples. It wasn’t all scheduled seminars, programs and workplans.

If the two greatest commandments are to love God and to love others, then it is fair to say that we should consider time our greatest resource to achieve those. Money and effort count, but it is time that is the greatest measure of our priorities. When we look at Scripture we see that when Jesus considers what constitutes a righteous life, time is a critical factor:

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” (Matthew 25:35-36). Half of these things directly involve the use of time and simply ‘being with’ someone else, with the other three also involving some degree of time along with the effort or physical provision of support. So while there is definitely value in looking at how we spend our life’s hours in regards to such issues as the careers we pursue, and how we use the money we earn during those hours, it’s also equally critical to think about how we use time in simply ‘being with’ those around us.

I believe the greatest gift you can give someone is the gift of time. Spontaneous, unlimited, responsive, flexible time. To be able to say to a friend who is having a difficult time “hey, come round for dinner tonight or coffee tomorrow and just spend some time with us” (as opposed to “hey, I see you’re having a rough patch – how about we catch up for coffee in two weeks on Thursday for forty-five minutes?”) is the greatest gift you can provide. And to do that it is important that we structure our lives to have the freedom and flexibility of time to do so. It risks sounding insincere to say to someone “I’m there for you”, when in regards to time, you can’t be.

Taking a leaf from modern parenting concepts, the concept of ‘quantity time’ is greatly underestimated in our modern world. Anyone with kids can testify that they crave hours upon hours of unfocussed, random, meandering time with their parents, and a neatly scheduled ‘quality time’ block will not meet their needs. So too with friendships – While we’re too ‘mature’ to plead for sleepovers, play dates or weekends together, I think we all have to admit quietly that we love those days and weekends of unlimited time together with the people we love.

And of course, it’s not just about loving others. In regards to loving God time is also critical. This doesn’t just mean that hour of ‘quiet time’ that we all know we should do (and feel bad that we never do) but also simply ensuring that we have time to quietly and thoughtfully reflect and consider. Our decisions would probably be wiser, and our lives more meaningful if we took more time to reflect and think, rather than filling our lives with activity in the hope of finding meaning through busyness.

Of course, structuring ourselves to have this time is challenging, counter-cultural, and counter-intuitive. The modern world has deceived us into thinking that the only way not to ‘waste time’ is to fill it with busy-ness and activities. Look at any Saturday morning to see parents driving kids to activities and programs, scheduling ‘family time’ or ‘couple time’ or ‘alone time’ into our hectic calendars (I even saw the other day an ad by a game manufacturer promoting ‘Wednesday Family Game Night’!) – While none of these are necessarily bad things, they are efforts to fix a problem which we ourselves have created by cramming too much into our lives.

What is interesting however is that, as with all of those sermons we have heard about money, as you slow down to create time and space to intentionally love God and love others, time is given back to you. We kind of know that with money, so we shouldn’t be surprised that it happens with time too…

I am very glad that I married a woman who shared an understanding of the importance of time, especially as it relates to ourselves, our family and our friends. Through our lives we have made conscious, intentional decisions to not let ourselves get too busy with ’stuff’, so that we always had the free time (or at least the flexibility in our time) to offer hospitality and friendship freely and generously to others, be that each other, our children, or our friends. Whenever we have found ourselves not having the time to do justice to these relationships we have known that we are too busy and have re-prioritised accordingly. And we are no worse for it. We have never found ourselves ‘missing out’ on the things we find meaningful to do. Things like gym, jogging, cycling, camping, church, work, and other activities are all still there and in fact with time to spare. Perhaps that is because God miraculously gives us the gift of time, or perhaps we learn what truly is important to us in our use of time and no longer worry about those things which previously kept us very busy but which contributed neither to our lives nor to the love of God or others.

Now clearly, other peoples’ lives will have different expectations and demands, and thus be structured differently – But I sincerely believe that almost all of us could benefit (and in doing so, increase our ability to offer love to God and others) from looking at the issue of time in our lives and how we use it. I’m sure all of us can find ways that we could loosen our time ‘purse strings’, giving more freely to others, and allowing God to take (and give) freely from it

Pray about it – ask God to show us all how we could spend our time more wisely to fulfil those two amazing commandments.

p.s.

In a wonderful bit of synchronicity (or perhaps God just pitching in his thoughts   this wonderful poem arrived in my inbox today, which I think speaks much more beautifully on the same theme. I guess this is where poetry has the edge on mere words:

SLOW DANCE

Have you ever watched kids on a Merry –go –round

Or listened to the rain slapping on the ground?

Ever follow a butterfly’s erratic flight?

Or gazed at the sun into the fading light?

You’d better slow down.

Don’t dance so fast.

Time is short

The music won’t last.

Do you run through each day on the fly?

When you ask, ‘How are you?”

Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done

Do you lie in your bed

With the next hundred chores

Running through your head?

You’d better slow down

Don’t dance so fast.

Time is short

The music won’t last.

Ever told your child,

‘We’ll do it tomorrow”

And in your haste

Not seen his sorrow?

Ever lost touch

Let a good friendship die

Cause you never had time

To call and say ‘Hi”

You’d better slow down.

Don’t dance so fast

Time is short

The music won’t last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere

You miss half the fun of getting there.

When you worry and hurry through your day

It’s like an unopened gift…

Thrown away.

Life is no race

Do take it slower

Hear the music

Before the song is over.

The Daily Examen is an approach to grow in self-understanding and in openness to God’s love and God’s self-direction for your life.  Specifically, the Examen helps us get in touch with our feelings and reactions to daily experience and identify what gives us joy and what brings us sorrow.  Experiences that seem small and insignificant at the time take on greater meaning when we recognize they are part of a larger pattern.

This is a version of the five-step Daily Examen that St. Ignatius practiced:

1. Become aware of God’s presence.

No matter where you are, hilltop or valley, country or city, in a crowd or alone, you are a creature in the midst of creation. As you quiet yourself, become aware that God is present within you, in the creation that surrounds you, in your body, in those around you. The Creator who brought you forth into being is concerned for you. The Spirit of God, sent by Christ, will remind you that you are gifted to help bring creation to its fullness. Ask the Holy Spirit to let you look on all you see with love.

2. Review the day with gratitude.

Be concrete and let special moments or pleasures spring to mind! Recall the smell of your morning coffee, the taste of something good that you ate, the laugh of a child, the fragrance of a flower, the smile brought forth by a kind word, a lesson that you learned. Take stock of what you received and what you gave. Give thanks to God for favors received. Also look at your permanent gifts that allow your participation in this day. Recall your particular strengths in times of difficulty, your ability to hope in times of weakness, your sense of humor and your life of faith, your intelligence and health, your family and friends. God the Father gives you these to draw you into the fullness of life. As you move through the details of your day, give thanks to God for His presence in the big and the small things of your life.

3. Pay attention to your emotions – being open to being aware of your response to the experiences of the day as life-giving or life-diminishing.

“When did I feel most alive today? When did I most feel life draining out of me today?”

Search for the internal movements of your heart and your interaction with what was before you. Ask what you were involved in and who you were with, and review your hopes and hesitations. Many situations will show that your heart was divided—wavering between helping and disregarding, scoffing and encouraging, listening and ignoring, rebuking and forgiving, speaking and silence, neglecting and thanking. Remember, this is not a time to dwell on your shortcomings; rather, it is a gentle look with the Lord at how you have responded to God’s gifts. It is an opportunity for growth of self and deepening your relationship with God. Notice where you acted freely—picking a particular course of action from the possibilities you saw. See where you were swept along without freedom. What reactions helped or hindered you? See where Christ entered your decisions and where you might have paused to receive His influence.
4. Choose one feature of the day and pray from it.

Perhaps during this time you may feel led to seek forgiveness, ask for direction, share a concern, express gratitude, etc. Having reviewed this day of your life, look upon yourself with compassion and see your need for God and try to realize God’s manifestations of concern for you. Express sorrow for sin, the obscuring darkness that surrounds us all, and especially ask forgiveness for the times you resisted God’s light today. Give thanks for grace, the enlightening presence of God, and especially praise God for the times you responded in ways that allowed you to better see God’s life.

5. Look toward tomorrow.

Resolve with Jesus to move forward in action where appropriate. You might like to finish your time with the Lords Prayer.

• Try to keep the Daily Examen as consistently as possible. At regular intervals look back over your journal entries.
  • What do you notice? Any patterns? Themes?
  • What might these writings be telling you about how God is speaking to you?
  • What do these writings suggest about your identity? Your purpose? Your direction?

With acknowledgements to our church, Trinity Western University, and the Jesuits of the New Orleans Provence for their material that contributed to this.

I’ve often felt and believed that ‘going with the flow’ in regards to cultural expectation may often be the enemy of true Christian discipleship.

That sometimes being countercultural is actually more attractive. That people want to be a part of something unlike what they can get everywhere else. And if this means sacrifice and discipline, sometimes that’s actually better.

Interesting thinking… Especially in how we talk about Christ and faith, and that ‘making discipleship easy’ may not be the best approach.

And also how, perhaps, living a demonstrably nomastic life, with rituals of sacrifice built in, could encourage others to follow such a path as well.

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Compassion fatigue – the ugly truth

Jim Schembri

July 15, 2008

EVERY person who considers themselves civilised and decent and loving would surely rank compassion as their primary and most noble quality. Compassion distinguishes us from the beasts of the field, for it declares that we possess something that those on the lower rungs of the evolutionary ladder do not – namely, souls.

The willingness to understand, to empathise and – most of all – to sympathise with the plight of those less fortunate than ourselves enriches each of us and affirms the universal selflessness that binds us all as one.

And we hold compassion as being so intrinsic to what makes us human that we regard it as coming without condition.

Nobody ever talks about being “half-compassionate”, or “somewhat compassionate”, or “a little bit compassionate every other Tuesday”. Nobody thinks of compassion as something you can turn on and off. Like all the other human values we treasure – faith, trust, courage, respect – compassion is not a matter of degree. Either you have it or you don’t.

Yet deep in our dark little hearts we know otherwise.

Saying we are compassionate certainly has a nice ring to it but the ugly truth is that compassion is as malleable as all those other things in life that we adjust to suit ourselves.

Yeah, I’ll donate to your worthy charity – so long as you give me a receipt for tax purposes. Of course I’ll give this handicapped child a hug – provided the media gets some good images of me doing it. Hey, here’s some food to keep you from starving. Now believe in my cause.

All pretences aside, we may have far more in common with the beasts of the field than our civilised facades would allow us to admit. That’s what I think, anyway.

This shameful epiphany came recently while sitting in 29-D waiting to take off to start my holiday.

It was early Monday morning, so the plane was packed with business men jabbing their PDAs with plastic toothpicks and chipping away at their laptops.

As the departure time came and went the captain announced that there would be a “slight delay” because a passenger had suddenly taken ill and needed to be escorted off the fl ight. Nobody stirred as we all thought the same thing: “What’s a few minutes? I just hope that poor person is OK.”

But as the “slight delay” slowly turned into a “little delay” and then into a “notable delay” the cabin became increasingly restless. A collective bout of fidgeting broke out, of grumbling and moaning about what was taking so long.

When it was announced that we now had to wait for paramedics to arrive people began craning their necks to see where this troublesome sod was sitting. Concern over the welfare of this person was quickly overwhelmed by the impulse to bark into mobiles about “some sick bastard” who was holding up the flight.

Nobody now cared what the deal was with this person – it was, in fact, a dislocated ankle – they wanted them off the plane, dead or alive.

I used to consider the phrase “compassion fatigue” a particularly nonsensical concept. I don’t any more. I understand it because I suffer from it. I was with the mob, even though I had no meetings to attend, no appointments to keep, no schedule to stick to.

It was then that I realised the brutal linear relationship between compassion and convenience.

Compassion is a cinch so long as it doesn’t break your stride, but the more bother it is the more one’s capacity for compassion is drained.

By the time the plane took off – 45 minutes late – I was steaming, so I hatched a brilliant plan to exact revenge on the airline. As we disembarked I grabbed as many complimentary earphones as I could and stuffed them into my pockets, being careful to ensure the flight attendants did not catch me in the act.

Confession is good for the soul, or so the old proverb goes. It better be, because it sure doesn’t feel like it.

I see many layers to it, some more challenging than others.

Firstly, the easiest, is to love your friends and family. This layer should be easy for all, and yet we need to be reminded that it needs to be regularly nurtured… otherwise it could easily dwindle away to something closer to duty, habit, or taking someone for granted, than love.

Next, we can love strangers. This could also be easy too…. provided they look ‘normal’. It is not difficult to smile at someone on the street as you walk past, help the old lady carry her shopping to the car, share your experiences with the young mother in front of you at the supermarket queue… etc… but what about the scruffy woman with black teeth who tries to say ‘hello’, or the man with tattoos sitting drunk on the street asking for help? In this world where we are constantly told to be ‘cautious’ and ’smart’ around the streets, where is the line between being selfish for protecting yourself, and just being ’sensible’??

Then we have the most difficult layer, which is to love your enemies, or someone you don’t like. It could be someone who has hurt you with specific actions or words, someone who has ignored your many friendship gestures, or just someone who annoys you. Perhaps we might mustre up the strength to love someone who annoys us, or the ‘friend’ who keeps ignoring us. But what is ‘loving’ these people? Could it just be ‘not being nasty’ or does it mean giving your time to make these people happy or being their friend? And then we have the people who have hurt us, whether deliberately or not. Does loving them necessarily require forgiveness? Can we just ‘not hate’ them, forget their hurtful actions and move on your separate ways, or do we need to take the step to resolve the hurt feelings with them and be friends with them?

Clearly I am looking for many answers myself. And the answer to alot of the question would be “depends on the circumstances”. But for me, I would like to take on the challenge to reach as close as possible to the ultimate goal … taking it one small step at a time. Already I have a list of people with whom i need to either make amends with or re-establish contact. Perhaps that is the first step

Mitsy

The two simplest commandments
Based on every aspect dear
To love our God with all our hearts
And to love each other here

To focus on the One
Who created us with love
And watches us always
From heaven up above

Our Father in Heaven
Hallowed be thy name
For to love and follow you
Is our constant aim

Forgive us when we sin
This is what we pray
Protect us daily Lord
Each and every day

To focus on the people
We see and think of every day
Help us to love them dearly
And show us the way

To love everyone, brothers
True and sincere love always
To love them as we love ourselves
As we look upon Your gaze

When we see the love of people
Remind us of your command
For in the eyes of our brothers
We see the heart of man

And the heart so full of love
When sincere and prayerfully made
Reminds us of You, Father
And of price you paid… for Your love… us.

Remind us daily
Of your two commands true
Remind us to love others always
And remind us to always love you.

“It wasn’t just about the food!” she said. “I would never let my baby starve. I would have got food for my baby whether I begged, borrowed or stole it. I just needed to talk to someone intelligent.”

When presented with the $20 paid to participate in the interview she cried and said that this was a bonu because now she could buy some baby food for her son.

Where was this woman’s neighbour? Was it me? Did I not see her struggle, her love for her child. Did I not see past the rough exterior. The fear of a ‘criminal’. Maybe she was a ‘criminal’, maybe she was an ‘addict’, but she was also a mother, a neighbour, a child. And she showed more love for her child in stealing than I did for her by not seeing her need.

Where was I? I can afford baby food. I can listen to someone’s story. 

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

 ”Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

 ”The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

 ”Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

 ”He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

 ”Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”