Reflection for Sunday – October 5, 2025

Denise MackSunday Readings Homilies

Readings: Habaukkuk 1:2-3,2:2-4; 2 Timothy 1:6-8,13-14; Luke 17:5-10 
Preacher: Deni Mack

The film Cabrini shows us a woman who had more faith than I can imagine.  My faith feels smaller than a mustard seed; Mother Cabrini’s faith was gigantic! 

 Mother Cabrini (Born 1850, Died 1917) knew God called her to service among poor people and Pope Leo XIII knew where she was needed. He sent her to help immigrants in New York City. Faith drove Cabrini and Leo to further the rights of workers and immigrants in a world that St Frances Cabrini said, treated Italian immigrants worse than rats.  Workers were exploited as cheap laborers to make the company’s owners and investors wealthy. In those timesß there were no child labor laws nor sufficient safety measures in most workplaces.  In the film about St. Cabrini, children worked in a factory where explosions killed several workers. 

In today’s first reading the prophet Habakkuk cries to God, “How long, O Lord?  I cry for help!” Mother Cabrini cried the same prayer.  Immigrants arrested today cry the same prayer.  And so do their families.  A film clip shows a young mother being shoved into a wall first and then to the floor, in front of her traumatized children. She had not touched an ICE agent. She kept asking him where they were taking her husband.  In another city ICE arrested an Asian violinist. For three days his wife, a surgeon, called everyone she thought might know how to find where he was. She found he had to sleep on a concrete floor with many other men, an open urinal and sickening food. She alerted musicians who worked for three weeks to get him released. He is sick from the experience.  Few detainees have advocates able to locate them and work to win their release.

This week, a local pastor said, “80 people are missing from our community.” 80 people are either in a detention center or deported. Another local pastor advocated for asylum seekers ICE had taken and won one’s release. And another wrote letters affirming every great quality you and I would want in a neighbor. He described his missing parishioners’ behaviors and character. These people, taken by ICE, with no warrant, are very dear family men, hard workers, good fathers, grateful human beings who helped neighbors and church. Despite his praise, the men have not been released; their families are devastated. 

The immigrants of Cabrini’s and Pope Leo’s day are like today’s immigrants.  They are eager to work! Haitians who entered the USA legally were suddenly told this summer they could not work. Employers were told to fire all Haitian immigrants; Walmart and Amazon complied immediately. Haitians were ordered to self deport this summer. They cannot as they have no money and no airlines are flying into Haiti; it is too dangerous.  

Habakkuk prayed and received an answer from God.  Habakkuk was told to “write down the vision…for the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment and will not disappoint.” Mother Cabrini wrote to Pope Leo; she kept him aware of the horrors immigrants found here; she shared her vision of immigrants having jobs, homes, food, education, health care and human civil rights. Pope Leo XIII wrote his vision in Rerum Novarum, On the Conditions of Labor (1891) teaching us all to honor human rights by showing respect for the dignity of labor and laborers.  Mother Cabrini’s vision influenced Pope Leo.  

Rochester Refugee Resettlement Services and religious leaders wrote their vision of solutions to today’s crisis.  They addressed their vision to leaders near and far.  

We pray with Habakkuk to our gracious God who assures us all “the vision still has its time…if it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late. The rash one has no integrity; but the just, because of their faith, shall live.”

Our Psalm today sings of us worshipping God with thanksgiving! That is hard to do when things are going badly.  The psalmist advises us “Harden not your hearts!”  Our hearts are not hardened when we feel overwhelmed, helpless and hopeless over the rising costs of food, housing, and health care for people unable to earn enough to pay for essential costs.  Our hearts are not hardened when we cringe over violent arrests of people who pick and pack our food.  Our hearts are not hardened when we weep over the wars in Ukraine, Sudan, the Middle East and policy wars in many legislatures throughout the world. Praying “How long, O Lord? I cry for help” softens our hearts.  We ask God, what is Your vision.  

We discern God’s vision with a lot of help from scripture and prayer. The vision comes clearer as the letter to Timothy reminds us to stir into flame God’s gifts of power, love and self-control, assuring us the Holy Spirit dwells within us with faith and love moving us, especially in the midst of chaos, to live into God’s vision.  Even with faith as small as a mustard seed we pray for all humanity. God never leaves us alone to co-create some needed pieces of God’s vision.

Denise Mack
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