Jeremiah gives us today two portraits, and they could not be more different.
The first is a barren shrub in the desert — a man who trusts in human flesh, whose heart has turned from the Lord. He cannot see goodness when it comes. He stands in scorched earth, in a salt land no one inhabits.
The second is a tree planted by water. Its roots reach deep toward the stream. It does not fear the heat. When drought comes, it does not wither. It yields its fruit in season, and its leaves never fade.
The difference between these two men is not talent. It is not circumstance. It is the direction of their roots. One has planted himself in flesh; the other has planted himself in God. And everything — their fruitfulness, their joy, their very capacity to endure — flows from that one decision.
The Folly of Apathy
The Gospel sharpens this image into something more urgent. The rich man in the parable is not a monster. He is simply a man who never learned to see. He dined sumptuously every day while Lazarus lay at his gate — and the tragedy is not that he hated Lazarus, but that he barely noticed him.
The great chasm that appears in eternity was not placed there by God as punishment. It was dug here on earth, day by day, through the practiced habit of not seeing, not stopping, not caring. Indifference is not neutral. It has an architecture. And that architecture, left unchecked, becomes a wall — and then a chasm — between ourselves and God.
Lent asks us: where am I building walls? Where am I averting my eyes? Whose suffering have I learned not to notice?
The Only True Tragedy of Life
Today, on his birthday, these readings illuminate Fr. Willy with a clarity that no eulogy could manufacture. He was, in Jeremiah’s image, a tree planted by water. His roots went deep — into daily prayer, into the Rosary, into the Lord himself. And because of that, he bore fruit in every season, in every climate, on every continent he touched.
Where the rich man had learned not to see, Fr. Willy had trained himself to see everyone. He never ignored anyone on the way. He could not walk past a Lazarus. Not because he was a saint by temperament — but because his roots had grown toward the One who sees every sparrow that falls.
He used to say it plainly, with that smile: the only real tragedy in life is not to be a saint. Not poverty. Not suffering. Not even death. The only real tragedy is to reach the end having closed your eyes to the person at your gate.
The Bridge of Fatherly Love
If the rich man’s life was defined by the chasm he dug, Fr. Willy’s life was defined by the bridges he built. Every family he served, every son and daughter he adopted into his heart, every long drive taken with someone who simply needed to be heard — each was a plank laid across the distance that separates us from one another and from God.
This was his fatherly love. Not sentimental. Not occasional. But rooted, steady, fruit-bearing — the love of a tree that does not wither in drought because its roots reach water the surface cannot see. As we remember him today, the readings do not ask us to mourn. They ask us to choose. To decide where we will plant our roots. To ask ourselves whether we are becoming the tree by the water, or the shrub in the desert. Fr. Willy made that choice, and he made it every day. He trusted not in flesh but in the Lord. He saw the Lazarus at the gate. He built bridges where the world builds walls.
That is the homily he preached with his life. Today, the readings simply give it words.
Happy Birthday! Rest in peace, dear Father. May the Lord in whom you planted your roots receive you now into his joy.
Until we meet again...
- Today’s Readings
- Father Pinto's inspirational homily was recorded live during Mass at the Father Peyton Center this morning. You can view the Mass (and the Rosary at the 30-minute mark) on the Family Rosary YouTube page.
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.jpg "Father Pinto Paul, C.S.C.")