MT 25: 31-46

We know that Jesus is REALLY PRESENT in the Eucharist, but He is also ‘really present’ in the poor. For we read. “What so ever you do to the least of my brothers and sisters that you do unto me.”  So whatever we do toward the poor, it’s not as if we were doing it to the Lord. We are doing it to Him. Jesus is really present in the hungry, naked, lonely, and sick and those  in prison. So any good we do, we do it to Jesus himself.

This passage of Matthew is taken from the last of the “great sermons” of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel.  The JBC describes this passage as a master piece, the high point and grand finale of last of Matthew’s five discourses. When the sermon ends, the very next paragraph is the beginning of the Passion Narrative. This is Jesus farewell message to the masses, his last sermon of his public ministry, and his personal appeal to us to prepare ourselves, if we wish to enter the kingdom. The list that Jesus enumerates contains six of the seven corporal acts of mercy (the one missing is the burial of the dead) .