Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Sister Liane Delsuc, SNDdeN

February 16, 2025

Jeremiah and the Sermon on the Mount

In today’s first reading the prophet Jeremiah warns: “Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings, who seeks his strength in flesh, whose heart turns away from the Lord. Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose hope is the Lord.” As a Jew, Jesus knew well this Hebrew Scriptures and further explained the prophet Jeremiah’s words in the gospel reading. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus presents a blueprint for a life of joy and freedom, reversing the usual human striving for power, wealth and status. Instead, Jesus creates a vision, a dream, of right relationships called ‘the Reign of God.’

Living under the oppression of the Romans and experiencing the corruption of the temple hierarchy, Jesus understood the political, social and ecclesiastical injustices similar to those that we, too, experience today. He begins by saying, “Blessed are the poor,” a reversal of what many people think. Poverty, the lack of the basic necessities of life like clean air and potable water, work with a living wage, health care, nutritious food, is never good. Yet when we have the opportunity to get to know people who have been made poor by society’s injustices, we learn of deep faith, an incredible trust in a Good God who has walked with them always, promoting a resilience of spirit that those with wealth may never realize as they stress about protecting what they have or getting more.

Jesus says, “The kingdom of God IS yours”, the gift is now! Those who are marginalized, the least in our world, the outcasts and the strangers, are often those who recognize their dependence on God and on one another, creating a caring community and seeking the common good. They can teach us and lead us to the Reign of God. How can I, how can we,  be inclusive of ‘the other’ and so deepen our faith in the goodness of our God?  Am I, are we, willing to relinquish unnecessary wealth, power and status to be transformed in order to become the beloved community Jesus envisioned?  For blessed are the poor, the meek, the hungry…

Luke 6:17, 20-26

And he came down with them and stood on a stretch of level ground. A great crowd of his disciples and a large number of the people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon

And raising his eyes toward his disciples he said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours.

Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied.

Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh.

Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man.

Rejoice and leap for joy on that day! Behold, your reward will be great in heaven. For their ancestors treated the prophets in the same way.

But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation

But woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry.

Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep.

Woe to you when all speak well of you, for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

Meet Sister Liane Delsuc, SNDdeN

Sister Liane Delsuc entered the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in 1975 after having graduated from the College of Notre Dame, Belmont, CA with a Spanish major and an elementary teaching credential. She taught in a bilingual program in a low income multi-ethnic public school before entering. She had been taught by the SNDdeNs in Millbrae, CA at St. Dunstan School and was impressed with the story of St. Julie in the second grade, where she drew a picture of Julie in the hay cart. Her teaching experience led her to a Master’s program and specialist credential in the area of Education of the Learning Handicapped. For all of her religious life, Liane has chosen to live and serve among people who are marginalized and made poor. Her first mission was to inner city Los Angeles where she developed a Resource Room in two Catholic elementary schools to serve children struggling to learn. That experience led her to create the Julie Billiart Learning Center in East L.A. to serve junior high students with learning disabilities. From there, Sister Liane responded to a call to serve in a shantytown outside of Lima, Peru, where she lived and worked for 16 years. When she felt a call to return to CA, Liane started a Resource Room for struggling students at Moreland Notre Dame School, Watsonville, CA, founded by the SNDdeNs and situated in an agricultural community on the Central Coast. After 16 years there, Liane began her ministry of teaching ESL/Citizenship classes to adults in Phoenix, AZ and presently serves asylum seekers through the International Rescue Committee.