Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: love

  • Holy Thursday: Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper

    Holy Thursday: Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper

    Today’s readings

    “We should glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,

    for he is our salvation, our life and our resurrection;

    through him we are saved and made free.”

    That is the proper entrance antiphon, also known as the introit, for this Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper. It is taken from Paul’s letter to the Galatians in which he says “May I never boast about anything other than the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which I have been crucified to the world and the world to me.” As you know, the Church considers these three days – the Sacred Triduum – as just one day, one liturgy. When we gather for Mass tonight, and reconvene tomorrow for the Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion, and finally gather for the great Easter Vigil on Saturday, it’s just one day for the church, one Liturgy in three parts. And the only part of that Liturgy that has an entrance antiphon is tonight’s Mass, so the Church has chosen this text to set the tone for our celebrations for these three nights, and to draw all of them together with the cross holding them all together.

    It’s almost ridiculous for us to glory in the cross.  Few of us could imagine anything more horrible than being arrested by the leaders of one’s religion, put through a farce of a trial, being stripped, humiliated, beaten and dragged through the streets, then being nailed to a cross in order that we might die a horrible, painful death for no apparent reason.  But we know the reason, don’t we?  And that reason is why the Church has us gather on these holy days to glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

    We glory in the cross because these days remind us that there is nothing our God won’t do in order to be with us.  It was we who had and have rejected his friendship over and over again.  Our original sin, our personal sin, our societal sin, the sins of all the ages and every people had dug a chasm that prevented us from being close to our God.  The offense was so great and the chasm was so deep that there was absolutely nothing we could do to bridge the gap and find our God.  So God did it for us.  He sent his only Son to be our salvation.  He was born among us in the lowliest of conditions.  He grew up and lived among us, experiencing the many frustrations that we find in our world, knowing our hardship and pain.  And when the appointed hour arrived, he gave up his very own life in that horrible, humiliating, seemingly-pointless death.  That act canceled the power that sin and death had over us, bridged the great chasm, and opened for us the possibility of life that lasts forever.

    We absolutely should glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ!

    I think what the cross teaches us in these three days, and what this evening’s part of the Liturgy says in particular is summed up in the Latin word, caritas. Caritas is most often translated into English as either “charity” or “love.” And, as in the case of most translations, both are inadequate. When we think about the word “charity,” we usually think of something we do to the poor: we give to the poor, we have pity on the poor, that kind of thing. And “love” can have a whole host of different meanings, depending on the context, and the emotion involved. And that’s not what caritas means at all. I think caritas is best imagined as a love that shows itself in the action of setting oneself aside for the good of others. It’s a love that remembers that everything is not about me, that God gives us opportunities all the time to pour ourselves out on behalf of others, that we were put on this earth to love one another into heaven.

    Two parts of this evening’s Liturgy show us what caritas means. The first is what we call the mandatum: the washing of the feet. Here, Jesus gets up from the meal, puts on a towel and begins to wash the feet of his disciples. Washing the feet of guests was a common act of hospitality in Jesus’ time. In those days, people often had to travel quite a distance to accept an invitation to a feast or celebration. And so the guests’ feet would be washed. This was a gesture of hospitality that was supplied not by the host of the gathering, but instead by someone much lower in stature, usually a servant or slave. But at the Last Supper, it is Jesus himself who wraps a towel around himself, picks up the bowl and pitcher, and washes the feet of his friends.

    We will reenact that Gospel vignette in a few minutes. But I have to admit, I’m not a big fan of this particular ritual. Not because I don’t like washing feet or don’t care to have mine washed. It’s just that I think this particular ritual is better when it is reenacted outside of church. Every day, in every place where Christians are. Let me give you an example.

    In seminary, we used to eat cafeteria style most of the time, much like any institution of higher learning. But several times a year, we would have formal dinners. They would happen on special feast days or to celebrate the giving of ministries or ordinations to the deaconate. On those occasions, our round tables would have white tablecloths, there would be wine at the table, and special food. On one of the chairs of every table, there would be a white apron. The person who got that chair was to put on the apron – much like Jesus wrapped the towel around him – and serve the rest of the people at the table. Now, when I first got to seminary, my objective, I am not proud to tell you, was to get over to the refectory early so that I wouldn’t have to be that person. Lots of us did that at first. But sometime during seminary, and I’m not sure exactly when it happened, my objective changed. I would try to get to the refectory early, not to avoid being the one to serve the rest, but to get that seat at the table so that I could serve the others. Certainly that was the work of the Holy Spirit.

    And I think this kind of caritas can happen everywhere. Maybe you make an effort to get home from work a little sooner to help your spouse get dinner ready or help your children with their homework. Maybe at work you try to get in early so that you can make the first pot of coffee so that people can smell it when they come in to the office. Or maybe after lunch you take a minute or two to wipe out the microwave so it’s not gross the next day. If you’re a young person, perhaps you can try on occasion to do a chore without being asked or even wash the dishes when it’s not your turn to do it. Or if one of your classmates has a lot of stuff to bring to school one day, you can offer to carry some of his or her books to lighten the load.

    This kind of thing costs us. It’s not our job. We’re entitled to be treated well too. It’s inconvenient. I’ve had a hard day at work – or at school. I want to see this show on television. I’m in the middle of reading the paper. But caritas requires something of us – something over and above what we may be prepared to do. But, as Jesus says in today’s Gospel, he’s given us an example: as he has done, so we must do. And not just here in church washing each other’s feet, but out there in our world, washing the feet of all those in our lives who need to be loved into heaven.

    The second part of our Liturgy that illustrates caritas is one with which we are so familiar, we may most of the time let it pass us by without giving it a thought. And that, of course, is the Eucharist. This evening we commemorate that night when Jesus, for the very first time, shared bread and wine with his closest friends and offered the meal as his very own body and blood, poured out on behalf of the world, given that we might remember, as often as we do it, what caritas means. This is the meal that we share here tonight, not just as a memory of something that happened in the far distant past, but instead experienced with Jesus and his disciples, and all the church of every time and place, on earth and in heaven, gathered around the same Table of the Lord, nourished by the same body, blood, soul and divinity of our Savior who poured himself out for us in the ultimate act of caritas.

    We who eat this meal have to be willing to be changed by it. Because we too must pour ourselves out for others. We must feed them with our presence and our love and our understanding even when we would rather not. We must help them to know Christ’s presence in their lives by the way that we serve them, in humility, giving of ourselves and asking nothing in return.

    The ultimate act of caritas will unfold tomorrow and Saturday night as we look to the cross and keep vigil for the resurrection. Tonight it will suffice for us to hear the command to go and do likewise, pouring ourselves out for others, laying down our lives for them, washing their feet and becoming Eucharist for them. It may seem difficult to glory in the cross – it may even seem ridiculous to say it. But the Church makes it clear tonight: the cross is our salvation, it is caritas poured out for us, it is caritas poured out on others through us, every time we extend ourselves, lay down our lives, abandon our sense of entitlement and give of ourselves.

    “We should glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,

    for he is our salvation, our life and our resurrection;

    through him we are saved and made free.”

  • Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time [C]

    Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time [C]

    Today’s readings

    You know, since I’m currently serving in this, my home parish, I’m going to pass on the opportunity to comment on today’s Gospel: I’ve already reflected long and hard on how a prophet is not accepted in his own native place!  I’d like to talk instead about our second reading today.  Paul’s explanation to the Corinthians about the nature of love is one that we’ve heard a million times, especially if we’ve been to any number of weddings.  We may have heard this reading so often that on hearing the opening words of it, we tune out and just let the words flow past us.  But I think Paul’s ruminations about the nature of love are important, so I’d like us to take a little pause in our lives to consider them.

    The other day, I was finishing up at the office after having met with a nice couple who were planning to get married here next year.  The night was crisp, well cold actually, but very clear, and I could see the almost-full moon bright and large in the sky.  Again, this is something that we see enough that maybe we might just be tempted to walk past it and get to someplace warm.  But I didn’t.  It struck me that during the winter, we don’t often get to see such a beautiful sky; too often the beauty around us is masked by gray clouds.  And so that beauty caused me to stop where I was – even though it was cold – and look up at the sights for a minute or so.

    I realized that that beauty brought me joy, even in the dark of winter, and I remembered that joy is, as Teilhard de Chardin wrote, the most infallible sign of the presence of God.  And I got a little choked up, as I stood there, thinking about how God loved me enough to give me a glimpse of beauty that was really nothing compared to what lies in store for us.  As Saint Paul says today, we currently see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then we shall see face-to-face.  And what beauty, what joy there will be on that great day!

    That beauty that we shall see one day is what theologians call the beatific vision.  That is the joy that we hope for in the life to come, and nothing on earth can compare to it.  But sometimes, once in a while, probably more often than we take time to realize, God gives us a little glimpse at that beauty, that joy here on earth.  The Catechism teaches us about this too.  It says, “Faith makes us taste in advance the light of the beatific vision, the goal of our journey here below.  Then we shall see God ‘face to face,’ ‘as he is.’  So faith is already the beginning of eternal life.  When we contemplate the blessings of faith even now, as if gazing at a reflection in a mirror, it is as if we already possessed the wonderful things which our faith assures us we shall one day enjoy.” (CCC, 163)

    One of those little glimpses of the beatific vision, is love.  We know that God is love, that God cannot not love, that anything that is not loving is not God.  I often say that the way that I know that God loves me is by just thinking about the good people God has put in my life.  My family, my friends, my parish family, my brother priests, all of these good people love me in ways that can only come from God.  And experiencing the love that they have for me, and the love I have for them, I get a little glimpse of God’s love for me.  And so it is no wonder that Saint Paul today takes such a good, long look at the nature of love.  He tells us what love is, and also what love is not; he defines love in at least sixteen different ways.

    Perhaps the most important thing to take away from this reading though, is that love is the most important thing of all.  That makes sense if we keep in mind that God is love, doesn’t it?  But we often get bogged down in looking for other things.  And Paul knows this too.  He says that even if we spend all our time working on developing our spiritual gifts – which is not a bad thing to do, of course – but don’t work on loving, then those spiritual gifts are meaningless.  It could never happen, given our imperfect natures, but even if we could speak and understand every human and angelic language, even if we could prophesy perfectly, even if we came to know every possible thing that could be known, even if we could move mountains with our faith, if we don’t also love, then we are nothing at all.  If we don’t get love, we don’t get God, we don’t get anything.  All that other stuff is nice, but love is the still more excellent way.

    For all of us busy twenty-first century people, I think the challenge is making time for love.  We get caught up in our work, our serving, our sports, our kids’ activities, and so on and so on.  But if we don’t take time to love, all that stuff is nothing.  We had a hard week last week, dealing with the tragic death of one of the teacher’s aides in our school.  The day that we told the teachers, I was just drained by the end of the day.  But I went to my mom’s house to celebrate the second birthday of my youngest niece, and she gave me the biggest hug I’d had in a long time.  Katie was God’s love for me in that moment, and I didn’t miss the significance of that at all.

    Love is a lot of things – it’s so complex and yet so simple.  The love that we experience here on earth is just a little glimpse of the love that is our God – but it is absolutely a glimpse of the love that is our God.  Who cares what else we accomplish, what else we can do – if we can’t love, we can’t be part of God’s life, because God is love itself.  That’s why Paul tells us that everything else will pass away – all our spiritual gifts, all our accomplishments on earth, all of our prestige and importance and everything else on earth will pass away one day.  And on that day, it will be just fine to be without all that stuff, because the three things we are left with – faith, hope and love – will never pass away and will lead us to eternal life and a sharing in the life of God.

    And the greatest of these is love.

  • Monday of the Thirty-third Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Thirty-third Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    You know, every time we hear this story about the widow’s mite, the story is equated with the call to stewardship. That’s the classic explanation of the text. And there’s nothing wrong with that explanation. I might even go so far as to preach it that way myself on occasion. But honestly, I don’t think the story about the widow’s mite is about stewardship at all. Yes, it’s about treasure and giving and all of that. But what kind of treasure? Giving what?

    I think to get the accurate picture of what’s going on here, we have to ask why the Church would give us this little vignette at the end of the Church year, in the very last week of Ordinary Time. That’s the question I found myself asking when I looked at today’s readings. Well, first of all, it’s near the end of Luke’s Gospel so that may have something to do with it. But I think there’s a reason Luke put it at the end also. I mean, in the very next chapter we are going to be led into Christ’s passion and death, so why pause this late in the game to talk about charitable giving?

    I think the key here is to figure out why the woman would have done what she did.  Why would she, a poor widow without anyone to take care of her, why would she have tossed her last two coins into the treasury?  It’s totally irrational when you think about it.  But I think maybe, just maybe, she gave everything because she was used to sacrificing for the one she loved, which until recently would have been her husband.  Now she doesn’t have anyone left to give everything for, except for God alone.  The love she had for her husband has to go somewhere, it doesn’t just disappear, so now she can give everything for God.

    In this last week of the Church year, we have to hear the widow telling us that there is something worth giving everything for, and that something is our relationship with Christ our God.  Here at the end of the Church year, we are being invited to look back on our lives this past year and see what we have given. How much of ourselves have we poured out for the life of faith? What have we given of ourselves in service? What has our prayer life been like? Have we trusted Jesus to forgive our sins by approaching the Sacrament of Penance? Have we resolved to walk with Christ in good times and in bad?

    In short, have we poured out everything we have, every last cent, every widow’s mite, for our life with Christ? Have we given our whole livelihood?  Or have we held something back, giving merely of our surplus wealth?

  • Friday of the Thirtieth Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Thirtieth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    It could have been jealousy.  Or maybe they just felt threatened.  Either way, the Pharisees had lost sight of the mission.

    You could see how they would have been jealous: here they are working long and hard to take care of the many prescripts of their religion, attending with exacting detail to the commandments of God and the laws that governed their way of life.  But it is Jesus, this upstart, and not them, who is really moving the people and getting things done.  People were being healed – inside and out – and others were being moved to follow him on his way.  That had to make them green with envy.

    And, yes, they probably felt threatened.  The way that he was preaching, the religion he was talking about – well, it was all new and seemed to fly in the face of what they had long believed and what they had worked so hard to preserve.

    But how had they gotten here, how did they lose the way?  Because what Jesus advocated was really not a different message: it was all about how God loves his people and that we should love God and others with that same kind of love.  That message was there: buried deep in the laws and rules that they were so familiar with, but somehow, the laws and rules became more important than the love.

    The Pharisees wanted to preserve their religion and the way of life they had lived for so long.  Jesus wanted to make manifest God’s love, forgiveness of sins, and true healing.  It’s not that the rules of religion are not important, but the underlying message and the greatness of God cannot be overshadowed by legalism.  That is the argument in today’s Gospel; that is the argument that ultimately brought Jesus to the cross.  He would rather die than live without us; he paid the price that we might be truly healed and might truly live.  As the Psalmist reminds us today: Praise the Lord!

  • Wednesday of the Twenty-eighth Week of Ordinary Time

    Wednesday of the Twenty-eighth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    The requirements of discipleship cannot be reduced to mere observance of law, and a checklist of things to do.  Paying tithes and keeping feast days are important, but eclipsing them in importance is loving others as Christ does.  We disciples are called to bear others’ burdens, loving God and neighbor, setting aside our own honor and glory for the honor and glory of God.  And we are called to do all this while not neglecting our duty to tithe and keep feast days, and all the other requirements of our religion.  The disciple who loves God considers none of this a burden, and would never consider not taking care of it all.

  • Memorial of 9-11-01

    Memorial of 9-11-01

    Today’s readings

    I think many of us will never forget where we were eight years ago today.  People say that about the day that President Kennedy died, or the day when the space shuttle Challenger exploded.  But in a particular way, I think we will never forget September 11, 2001, because it was a day that changed our world in some very unpleasant ways and shattered whatever remained of our innocence.  Traveling and doing business has changed so much in these years.  So many of us have known people who have died in the twin towers, or in the war that has raged since.

    I remember the weekend following that horrible day.  I came home from seminary to visit with my parents, and we came here to church to pray.  The church was packed, on a Friday night.  And I know that in every church in America, pews were full every day and every weekend for quite a while.  Look around now, though.  Where is everyone?  Now that the world isn’t going to end as fast as we thought, do we no longer need God?  Or have we grown weary of the war that has been fought since and the changes in our world and just given up on God?

    I think that as the war continues, and the lack of peace seems to continue, and the somewhat subdued, now, but ever-present sense of terror continues, it might just be time for us to do some examination and to discern what has led to that sense of unrest.  Today’s Gospel gives us the examination of conscience that will help us to do that.  What precisely is the plank of wood in our own eyes that needs to be removed before we can concentrate on the splinter in the eye of another?  What is it that is un-peaceful in us that contributes, in some small but nonetheless very real measure to the lack of peace in the world?

    We all have to do that on an individual basis to start with. St. Paul does it in our first reading today when he admits to his friend Timothy, “I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and an arrogant man…”  And he acknowledges with deep gratitude and profound humility how God changed his life, had mercy on him, forgave him his sins, and gave him charge over one of the most significant evangelical and missionary ministries in the history of the world.  We, too, are blasphemers, persecutors and arrogant men and women, and it is time for us to humbly acknowledge that and urgently beg from God the grace to turn it around, that all the world might be turned around with us.

    But we also have to do this on a communal basis as well.  We don’t go to salvation alone; that’s why we Catholics don’t get overly excited about having a personal relationship with Jesus.  For us, a personal relationship with Christ, is like that first baby step; once we’re there, we know that we cannot rest and admire our work.  A personal relationship with Christ is certainly a good start for us, but we know that we have to be faithful in community or nothing truly great can ever happen.  So it’s up to all of us together to work for true peace, figuring out what in our society has led to unrest and mercilessly casting it out, opening ourselves to the peacemaking power of God that can transform the whole world.  Together, as the Mass for the Feast of Christ the King will tell us, we must work with Christ to present to God “a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace.”

    I get a little worked up when I think about this kind of thing, because I’ve come to realize this is the only way it’s all going to get wrapped up rightly.  Only when all the world has come to know the saving power of our God will we experience the return to grace that we lost in the Garden of Eden.  And that will never happen until all peoples have learned to love and respect one another, and have come to be open to the true peace that only God can give us.

    It didn’t all go wrong on 9-11; if we are honest, that horrifying day was a long time coming.  But that day should have been a loud, blaring wake-up call to all of us that things have to change if we are ever going to experience the peace of Christ’s kingdom.  We are not going to get there without any one person or even any group of people; we need for all of us to repent if any of us will ever see that great day.  Today, brothers and sisters in Christ, absolutely must be a time when we all hear that wakeup call yet anew, and respond to it from the depths of our hearts, both as individuals, and as a society.

    Truly we will never forget where we were on that horrible day of 9-11.  But wouldn’t it be great if we could all one day look back with fondness, remembering with great joy the day when we finally partnered with our God and turned it all around?

  • St. Pius X, pope

    St. Pius X, pope

    Today’s readings

    In our first reading today, Ruth had already figured out the teaching that Jesus spoke about in our Gospel reading.  She refused to leave her mother-in-law alone, even though she herself was from a distant land and a different people.  She could have turned and gone back there, and her mother-in-law gave her leave to do so.  But Ruth knew her place was where she was and she cemented the friendship and love between them.

    This is the love that Jesus speaks about in today’s Gospel.  Love God and neighbor – that is the call of our lives, and the project we live out every day that we have breath.  These two commandments are completely inseparable, because we love others as they are other christs in our lives.  We are called to pour out on one another the same great love that God has poured out on us.  This is how we in fact return that love to God and show our love for him.

    Pius X was a good pastoral man who lived these words and taught them to others.  He was born Joseph Sarto, the second of ten children in a poor Italian family. He became pope at the age of 68, and he too wanted to open the banquet for all those who would come worthily. He encouraged frequent reception of Holy Communion, which was observed sparingly in his day, and especially encouraged children to come to the banquet. During his reign, he famously ended, and subsequently refused to reinstate, state interference in canonical affairs. He had foreseen World War I, but because he died just a few weeks after the war began, he was unable to speak much about it. On his deathbed, however, he said, “This is the last affliction the Lord will visit on me. I would gladly give my life to save my poor children from this ghastly scourge.”

    Our God has blessed us with love beyond all imagining.  We have great teachers of that love today: Ruth, who refused to leave her mother-in-law alone in her grief, and Pius X who would give anything if the people he shepherded could avoid the scourge of war.  Each of us is called to pour out God’s love on one another too, and we will most likely have at least one opportunity to do that today.  The two greatest commandments are to love God and love our neighbor.  What will that look like for us today?

  • Friday of the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Today’s Liturgy of the Word asks us to ponder the question, “what do we have to do to remain in covenant with God?”  And the question, I think, is an important one.  We would want to respond to God’s gracious act of covenanting with us first.  We see in today’s readings that he chose us first, and calls us out of love for us.  Moses recites the mighty acts of God in which he remembered the promises made to the people’s ancestors and kept them, even though the people certainly didn’t deserve it.  Even though they often sought to break the covenant, God kept it anyway, loving the people even when they were unlovable.

    But what should our response be?  For Moses and the people Israel, the response was to keep the law.  The law itself was a wonderful document, given to the people out of love, to help them walk the straight and narrow, and to remain in relationship with God and others.  Moses contends that no other nation had gods that were loving and wise enough to provide something like that for their people.

    Jesus, of course, takes it several steps further.  “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”  Following the law was the first step, but it was pretty basic.  Even if the people obeyed it – which they often did not – it was still a matter of will mostly, and not heart.  Jesus calls us to make the same sacrifice he did: lay down our lives for one another out of love.

    “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”  And isn’t that the truth, really?  When we get so caught up in ourselves and our own pettiness, how quickly life slips away and we wonder what it all meant.  But when we lose our lives following Christ and loving God and neighbor with reckless abandon, well, then we have really found something.

    God loved us first and best, and always seeks covenant with us.  The law is still a good guide, but the cross is the best measure of the heart.  How willing are we this day to lose our lives relentlessly spending the love we have received from our God with others?

  • Friday of the Fifteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Fifteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Today, Jesus gives us what might be considered to be his mission statement: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”  Or at least we might consider this to be his statement of what he wants from us, his people.  And we, like the Pharisees, might be tempted to make all sorts of sacrifices.  That might mean sacrificing our time to work long hours to attain our goals.  Or maybe we sacrifice to give to the poor, or spend more time at Church, or whatever.  None of those things is bad in and of themselves, in fact, depending on our intentions, they are probably good things.  But if we don’t have mercy in the mix, if we don’t then also extend God’s love to our family, coworkers, or whoever God puts in our presence today, then we’ve blown it.  It’s all for nothing.  But, if we put mercy first, if we forgive as we have been forgiven and love as we have been loved, then we’ve gotten our mission statement right, too.

  • The Sacred Heart of Jesus

    The Sacred Heart of Jesus

    Today’s readings

    sacred-heart-of-jesusI remember when I was growing up, often visiting my dear grandmother.  She and I were best friends in so many ways.  I remember when we visited that she had a beautiful framed picture in the living room, given a spot of honor where everyone could see it, and that picture was of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  Whenever I think of the Sacred Heart, I remember grandma, whose name was Margaret Mary, named after the saint who promoted veneration of the Sacred Heart in the first place.

    And so, today we celebrate, with incredible gratitude, the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  Through his most Sacred Heart, the love of God is made manifest among us.  This love is a pervasive love that burns in our hearts and changes our lives and leads us back to the God who made us for himself.  This love is irresistible if we give ourselves over to it.  It is a love that pursues us and a love that can go far beyond whatever distance we have fallen from grace.  It is a love that, as Hosea tells us in the first reading, is rich in mercy, and, as St. Paul tells us in the second reading, dwells in our hearts through faith.  The love of God pours forth from the heart of Christ just as the water and blood poured forth from his side as he hung dead on the cross.  Death could not stop the outpouring of grace that he came to bring.

    God, of course is love, and because we were made to love him, we have some of that love that is God within our own imperfect, sometimes stony hearts, that love that helps us to reach beyond ourselves and reach out in our need.

    Three years ago, when I first came to St. Raphael, the first daily Mass that I celebrated with you was the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  And so it only seems appropriate, and yes, a little sad, that my last daily Mass with you is this same feast day.  It’s appropriate because all of you have helped me to come to know Christ’s love in so many beautiful ways.  In our worshipping together, and also in our serving together, we have loved one another and loved others in Christ’s name.  Celebrating Mass with you on these weekdays has been a labor of love for me, because you all come every day ready to celebrate and listen and pray and take the grace with you into your service in the day ahead.  What a great gift you have been to me; I will never forget that.

    St. Paul prays that we would be filled with the fullness of God.  May we all be filled to overflowing with the love of Christ, so that we can pour that love forth onto a world which longs to be soaked in that love.  May the Sacred Heart of Jesus have mercy on all of us.