Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: love

  • The Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    I have good news for you, and I want you to drill it into your very soul.  I want you to take it with you all through the coming week and beyond.  I want you to share it with every person who is important to you, no, even to every person God puts in your path.  That news is this: God is in charge.

    And thank God for that!  Look at the mess our governments, Church, and communities are in.  Scandals, mismanagement, all of those can cause us to lose confidence that anything is the way it’s supposed to be.  But, thankfully, God is in charge, and nothing can go so wrong that God can’t fix it.  We see that in the readings today.  In our first reading, the prophet Jeremiah finds himself being vexed by those who would rather not hear his message.  They seek to tempt and denounce him, hoping that will cause him to fall and do something they can use against him.  But it doesn’t work.  He turns to the Lord, the Lord hears his cry and delivers him from their hands.  And this causes him to sing God’s praise:

    Sing to the LORD,
    praise the LORD,
    for he has rescued the life of the poor
    from the power of the wicked!

    In the second reading, Paul recounts the fall of humanity through the sin of Adam.  Through that sin, death entered the world and sin and death reigned, until Jesus smashed their power through his own death and resurrection.  Saint Paul emphasizes that the Paschal mystery has turned everything upside-down, in a good way:

    For if by the transgression of the one the many died,
    how much more did the grace of God
    and the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ
    overflow for the many.

    Finally, in our Gospel reading, Jesus himself speaks directly to our hearts.  Even though we may be going through hell, even when it seems like everyone is working against us, we are to “Fear no one.”  Why?  Because God knows us completely: he has gone so far as to number the hairs on our head, so nothing of value in us can ultimately be destroyed.  And so we should not be afraid of “those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.”

    So I want you to take three things with you into the week ahead.  The first is do not be afraid.  Jesus says this three times in the Gospel reading today, so with that much repetition, we really ought to take notice.  Sin and death are ultimately powerless over us, so we should not be afraid.  Instead, we ought to go forth and follow our calling, live our vocation, and seek to maintain a holy way of life.  That will ensure that we remain on the path to the reward in store for us.

    Second, remember that God is in charge.  Not anyone else, not us, not our friends or enemies, not sin or death, not any passing thing or human entity.  Ultimately, it is only God who is in charge, and because of that, we have to know that everything will eventually work for our good and the good of all.  Evil can’t have the day because it’s already been defeated by the death and resurrection of Our Lord.  God is always in charge.

    Finally, perhaps most importantly, remember that you are loved.  God is love and because of that, God cannot not love.  He loves you more than you can possibly imagine.  He loves you despite your failings, calling you to a better life.  He loves you even when everyone else seems to be turning away.  He loves you on your good days and on your bad days.  His love is the constant in all of our lives, and the one thing that, even if everything else fails, should get us out of bed in the morning. 

    So do not be afraid.  You are worth more than many sparrows.  God loves you more than anything, and he is absolutely in charge of everything.

  • Tuesday of the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Tuesday of the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Today’s Gospel is one that’s certainly very familiar to us.  But if we’re honest, every time we hear it, it must give us a little bit of uneasiness, right?  Because, yes, it is very easy to love those who love us, to do good to those who do good to us, to greet those who greet us.  But when it comes right down to it, Jesus is right.  There is nothing special about loving those we know well, and we certainly look forward to greeting our friends and close family.

    However that’s not what the Christian life is about.  We know that, but when we get a challenge like today’s Gospel, it hits a little close to home.  Because we all know people we’d rather not show kindness to, don’t we?  We all have that mental list of people who are annoying or who have wronged us or caused us pain.  And to have to greet them, do good to them, even love them – well that all seems too much some days.

    And yet that is what disciples do.  We’re held to a higher standard than those proverbial tax collectors and pagans that Jesus refers to.  We are people of the new covenant, people redeemed by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.  And so we have to live as if we have been freed from our pettiness, because, in fact, we have.  We are told to be perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect.  It’s a tall order, but a simple act of kindness to one person we’d rather not be kind to is all it takes to make a step closer.

  • The Eleventh Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Eleventh Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Think back.  When you were growing up, in your faith formation, did you get the idea that somehow you had to behave yourself in order to win God’s love and grace?  I think that’s a common thing that people come to after a life of somewhat inadequate faith formation.  We got the idea that, if we wanted God to love us, then we had to behave in the right ways and follow all the rules.  And some of that comes from our human experience.  Many people often consume their lives with trying to win the approval of others, and so God is just an extension of that.  But we have it all backwards: God is not like that, and that’s what today’s Liturgy of the Word is trying to tell us.  The Scriptures show us a God who loves us first, and then calls on us to respond to God’s love by living the right way.  Our entire lives should be all about responding in love to the love God has for all of us.

    The first reading today recalls how God led the people Israel through the desert for forty years, bringing them safely to the land he promised on oath to their ancestors.  Traditionally this has been viewed literally, but there is also a tradition that sees the whole rescue of the Hebrew people from the tyranny of Egypt allegorically.  Many of the Church fathers see the rescue as our own rescue from the tyranny and slavery of sin, through the wilderness of the world, into the safe haven of God’s promise.  So whether we want to read this first reading literally today, or whether we want to see it as our delivery from sin, in either case, we see the Lord’s providence and kindness poured out on his people, delivering them from danger and bringing them safely into a land that had always been promised to them.

    For our second reading these coming weeks, we will be reading from Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans, arguably one of the masterpieces of his, or anyone else’s, theological writing.  Today’s reading is somewhat the crux of his presentation in Romans: God in his mercy chose to save us even though we were not worthy of it: we were still sinners.  We had been enemies of God through the power sin and death had over us, but God in his goodness chose to redeem us anyway.  Having been reconciled, he now chooses in his kindness to save us from the power of death and bring us in to the grace and peace of his kingdom for all eternity.  This is all done through the grace and kindness of our God, who chooses to save us even though we are not remotely worthy of it on our own.

    The Gospel reading, though, presents us with the greatest personification of God’s kindness.  Throughout chapter nine of Matthew’s Gospel, we see the crowds hanging on Jesus’ words and deeds.  In this chapter, Jesus heals a paralytic, he calls Matthew – a tax collector and a sinner – to follow him, he raises the daughter of a local government official from the dead, he heals two blind men, and expels a demon.  The crowds were understandably entranced by his words and deeds, and Jesus can see that they are entranced because they had so long gone without any kind of adequate pastoral care.  The religious officials who should have been bringing them the good news of God’s kindness had instead been about the business of extracting the minutiae of the Law and filling their own coffers.  They had left the people abandoned of God, like sheep without a shepherd, and Jesus’ heart ached for them.  So in his kindness, he sends out the Twelve to continue his work and to call more and more people to come to know that the kingdom was at hand, and repentance would give them a place in that kingdom.

    So these readings have been a great rehearsal of the kindness of God as the Scriptures present it.  God created us in love, redeemed us from the grasp of sin and death, and gives us a place in his heavenly kingdom – all of this without our being worthy of any of it.  And that’s nice, but the Scriptures would be remiss if they stopped there.  Instead, they go on to prescribe the proper response to God’s love and kindness, and each of today’s readings give us a way to do that.  These readings call us to keep the covenant, to boast of God and to freely give.

    In the first reading, God makes the first move in favor of establishing a covenant.  He didn’t have to – clearly.  He had made us in love, but we had turned away from him, and not just once.  Yet, he was the one who sent Moses to lead the people out of the slavery of Egypt so that they could inherit the land he promised on oath to their ancestors.  If God has reached out that far to us, we can do no less than keep the covenant.  We have to live the life of grace: keep the commandments, love God and neighbor, show God’s love in everything we do.  We have to reach out to the marginalized and needy, just as God reached out to us in our own need.  “If you hearken to my voice and keep my covenant,” God says to the Israelites and to us, “you shall be my special possession, dearer to me than all other people.”

    In the second reading, Saint Paul echoes what the first reading says.  God has made the first move.  He reconciled us while we were still sinners.  He gave us the way to the kingdom.  We didn’t deserve it, but our sinfulness is no match for God’s mercy.  So if God has been so merciful, we need to boast about it.  And we’re not to boast about it as if it was something we earned or accomplished on our own; we are to “boast of God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”

    And finally, in the Gospel, Jesus gives us the key to our response to God’s love, mercy and kindness: “Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.”  The gifts of grace are never given to us just for ourselves.  They are given to us to share.  Now that we have been redeemed and blessed, we must turn and bless others, leading them to the redemption God longs to pour out on them.  We are to freely give of the rich store of grace that has been freely given to us.

    God does not manipulate us for his pleasure.  He does not demand that we behave perfectly in order to receive his kindness, grace, and love.  Instead, he is the one who washes our feet, who stretches out his arms on the Cross, who dies that we may live.  In the face of such great and perfect love, we can do no less than love in return.

  • The Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

    The Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

    We’ve all heard the teaching that God is love.  And that’s a good thing to remember: I tell our school students they should always remember that, and if they do, they’ll know quite a bit about our God.  God is love in its purest form, so pure in fact that it burns away all our imperfections and makes us new people, washed clean in the Blood of Christ.  True love wills the good of the other for the sake of the other, and God models that best by having sent His only Son to live our life and die our death and raise us to new life with him forever.

    Today, the word “love” is tossed about in all sorts of ways.  Love can be construed as lust, or even affection, and real love isn’t any of that.  The popular saying is that “love is love,” and nothing could be further from the truth.  Real love isn’t bound by agendas, selfishness, or pride, and it is hard, no impossible, for us to avoid those things given our fallen human nature.  But, if we let Him, if we get out of his way, God will fill us with his grace, and give us love emanating from the Sacred Heart of Jesus that will fill our lives with love beyond measure.

    And let’s be clear: God loved us first and loves us best.  He loved us into creation and sustains us in his love.  Because God is love, he cannot not love.  But our agendas, selfishness, and pride can certainly get in the way, and now is the time to root all of that out because our world, our communities, our families, our churches need our love.  Everyone needs to see the Sacred Heart burning in us, because this world, left to its own crime, sin and blasphemy, is way too sad without it.

    We are all broken and hurting and in pain, spiritually. We might ignore it, or offer it up, or worst of all, might try to mask it with alcohol or other addictions. But none of that really heals us. The only thing that really heals is the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.  The same is true for our broken world.

    We don’t trust God as much as we should; we don’t let God love us as much as we should. We want to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, take care of number one all by ourselves. Pope Francis says that God never gets tired of showing us mercy, it’s we who get tired of asking. And that’s so wrong. We weren’t made for that. We were made to be cared for and to be loved so that we can take care of others and love them in the name of Christ.

    God’s love is awesome. It doesn’t just cover our sins, it wipes them out, obliterates them so that they aren’t who we are any more. In the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we find a love that is so pure and so powerful that it cannot be overshadowed by any kind of darkness, nor be snuffed out even by the grave.

    But we absolutely have to let him love us, or we will miss it every time.

    Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.

  • Thursday of the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Love is very definitely the theme of today’s Liturgy of the Word.  This week we have been hearing readings from the book of Tobit, in which we have the only Scriptural appearance of Saint Raphael the archangel.  And today we hear about him entering the story, in the guise of the person of Azariah.  Tobit and Tobiah and all the rest don’t know he’s an angel yet, but that will become clear enough when the blessing of love wipes the cataracts away from Tobit’s eyes, and everything becomes clear to him.

    And we know that it is love that can do all these things.  Love can clear up old Tobit’s vision.  Love can and will let Tobiah survive his wedding night when he marries Sarah.  Love can heal Tobit’s and Sarah’s broken hearts.  And love can reveal that the power of God works in all of our lives, in all of our hearts.

    Sometimes we need an angel, or a messenger, to come to know that.  During our lives, we can go through periods that are just awful and seem devoid of any joy.  But love won’t let that be the final answer for any of us.  Just as the angel Raphael took the form of Azaraiah and was a blessing to Tobiah and Sarah, so too there may be angels or messengers in our own lives, in the form of people of faith, that end the cycle of sadness in the same way that God’s blessing ended the cycle of death for Sarah’s husbands.

    Tobiah and Sarah sang a song of praise to God and said “Amen, amen” before going to bed for the night.  They woke up the next morning to rejoice in God’s love in the same way that we can, if we will but realize that there is no commandment greater than the commandment to love God and one another.  Death cannot and will not ever win the battle over love.

  • The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

    The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

    Today’s readings

    There’s a little Christian Science church in the town where I grew up.  They have since moved, but they used to be on Main Street, just north of the downtown area.  Their sign used to list their upcoming sermon topic, followed by the line “All are welcome.”  Imagine my surprise when one day, the topic was going to be eternal punishment.  So the sign read: “Eternal Punishment.  All are welcome.”  I had to drive around the block to make sure I read that right!

    Usually though, the topics weren’t very specific.  So one time the topic was going to be “God.”  I thought that will either be the world’s longest sermon, or it won’t really come all that close to talking about God.  The problem with God as a topic is that you’re painting with a pretty wide brush: anything you say can be right, but it also might not even really finish the job, and either way it can lead you into heresy!

    I feel like today’s topic of the Most Holy Trinity has me faced with that same dilemma.  It takes a lot longer than I’m able to talk to really get that topic covered, and still we probably won’t understand it very well.  Our limited vocabulary just gets in the way.  But let’s see how far we can get.

    There was a time when I got invited to speak to a religious education class about God.  I had the teacher ask them the week before to write down their questions about God so that I could help them with the things they really wondered about.  One of the questions, at first glance, seemed kind of a halfhearted effort to get an assignment done, until I really thought about it.  That question was, “What is God like?” and I think that young person was really onto something.

    In the end, we can say a whole lot of things about what God is like, but again our vocabulary gets in the way.  We can say God is like goodness, and that would be right.  But not in the way we think of things or even people as good.  Because our view of goodness has to do with how useful it is, and God’s goodness goes way beyond that.  We can say that God is like beauty, and that too would be right.  But not in the way that the world views beauty, which is limited and selfish and sometimes objectifying.  God’s beauty goes far beyond what we could ever imagine.

    But there is something we can say about what God is like that gets us a little closer to understanding the Most Holy Trinity, at least insofar as we can understand that holy mystery.  When I preach to the children in our school, I often tell them there is one thing that they have to know about God, and if they know it, they know a lot about what God is like.  And that one thing is that God loves you.  I tell them that’s so important that if they’re ever stumped on a religion test, they can write “God loves me” and it will be worth at least half credit.  The teachers just love it when I say that!

    But even that is hard to understand, because God, who is love itself, his love goes beyond anything we can conceive of.  His love looks like what happened on that cross.  His love embraces us even in our ugliest moments.  His love is powerful enough to burn away all of our flaws and make us new creations in his image.  His love really, truly keeps the world in motion.

    And our readings today tell us that love is a lot of what God is like.  The greeting I gave you at the beginning of Mass comes to us from the end of today’s second reading: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”  In that greeting, Saint Paul mentions every member of the Holy Trinity, “God” referring to God the Father.  And he describes that Trinity as a loving communion that fills us with grace.  That’s echoed in our Gospel reading, in which the very famous line from John 3:16 tells us what God is about, and what the Gospel teaches about God: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”  God’s love wants us all to come to eternal life, and so he sent his only begotten Son to come and take the punishment for our sins, and in the process breaking the power of sin and death to control our eternity.  Memorize that line, friends.

    Love is an apt description of the Holy Trinity, even for Saint Thomas Aquinas who famously described the Trinity in that way.  He taught that the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father, and the Holy Spirit is that love between the Father and the Son.  For Aquinas, the Trinity is a loving relationship, and I think that’s helpful to us who exist in relationships.

    Sometimes, we need God to be Father: correcting us, wanting the best for us, calling us to be who he meant us to be.  If we let him, the Father’s love burns away all the parts of us that are not praiseworthy and sets us ablaze to become new in his image.  Sometimes, though, we need God to be Son: a brother who picks us up when we have fallen far down, one who walks with us in the darkness of whatever is going on with us, one who leads us to the place where God’s love can encompass us.  And sometimes we need the Holy Spirit, whose love literally inspires us to be who we were meant to be, to live as new creations, and to desire nothing outside of God’s love.  We need God to be Father, Son and Holy Spirit in different ways at different times.  God doesn’t change: he’s always Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  But we change, needing him in different ways all through our life.

    So to answer that student’s question, “What is God like?” is a challenge.  Because God looks different to us at different times in our lives.  It’s only after this life has brought us to the kingdom when we’ll really know what God is like, as we see him face to face.  So I think I’ll leave you with that question, brothers and sisters.  What is God like?  I imagine it depends on what’s going on in your life, what your prayer has been like, and what your hopes and dreams are.  But it’s a question we should often pause to consider.  So pray about it this week.  What is God like?

  • Funeral Homily for My Mother, Julia Mulcahy

    Funeral Homily for My Mother, Julia Mulcahy

    In my funeral homilies for mothers, I have often reflected on how hard it is to lose a mother.  It turns out I was right!  From the very earliest moments of our existence and for many years, our mothers are our lifelines.  They provide food and sustenance first in the womb, then as we grow.  In the womb, our hearts beat together, and an amazing bond is formed.

    For my sisters and me, that bond was strengthened in these past few years, and especially in the last six or seven months as her illnesses progressed.  We all told her, and strongly believed, that it was our privilege to accompany her in her suffering, and to help relieve her as best we could.  We became the ones who provided food and sustenance – it’s a good thing she taught us all how to cook!  

    The collect prayer I chose for this morning evokes the fourth commandment: honor your father and mother.  I have often said over these few months that caring for Mom gave me a new appreciation, and a real love for, that commandment.  These months have certainly been difficult, but caring for Mom gave me a joy and a peace that I don’t think I would otherwise have had.  I think all three of us would say that.  That has been a blessing, and a consolation these past few months.

    “Many are the women of proven worth, but you have excelled them all.”  The writer of the Proverbs in our first reading puts words to a sentiment that we had for Mom, a devoted wife and mother, a grandmother, sister, aunt, and friend.  Today, we have come together in grief, to remember her contributions to our lives, and to pray for her soul.  This reading says a great deal about who my mother was.  It speaks of a woman who was smart, shared her wisdom, and lived with dignity.  That was Mom.  Anytime we had a project, or a problem, she had an idea for how to do it.  One of the things I often remember her saying is, “There must be a better way.”  And if there was, she would sure find it.  

    Mom’s faith was central to who she was.  One of my very earliest memories was of Mom teaching me the guardian angel prayer.  That prayer has accompanied my own journey through life, and it was one that we prayed together every night in the last year or so of her life.  She was also very devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Holy Rosary.  She was the one who taught me to pray it when I was young.  And I know so many of those beads have passed through her hands as she was praying for the three of us, and for her grandchildren, who were the light of her life in later years.  

    She and Dad lived their faith by being active in our parish growing up.  They were catechists in the high school program, and hosted a freshman class in their home for several years.  They also volunteered with the Saint Vincent DePaul Society, and delivered Christmas gifts to those in need for the parish.  They got us involved too, and being an active part of our parish was part of our family life.  My parents’ lived faith and my Mom’s fervent prayers certainly led me to the priesthood, and I’ll always be grateful for that.  I think Holy Mother Church owes a great deal to the mothers of many priests.

    “Love never fails,” says Saint Paul in our second reading.  One of the hallmarks of our family, always, was that we all knew how much we were loved.  We might disagree with each other on occasion, but we always sought the good of each other.  It was, indeed, a love that never failed.  It was a love that would have us lay down our lives for each other.  As Mom grew ill, the three of us met with her.  And the first thing she said to us was, “I know I’m a problem for you guys.”  We all said, no, Mom, you have a problem, you are not a problem.  And just like any of the problems our family has ever faced, we found a way to get through it.  The “better way” was love, and love wouldn’t have us do anything less for her than we did.  Love never fails to help us lay down our lives for each other.

    Probably for my whole priesthood, I dreaded this day, the day I would have to preach at my Mother’s funeral.  It’s hard to put into words what she meant to me, and to all of us, and it’s especially hard to do that without a tear in my eye.  But it is an absolute privilege to celebrate this funeral Mass for my Mother who had such a beautiful soul, and whose love inspired so many of the good things I have been able to do in my life.  We gather this morning with heavy hearts, because no matter how many years we’ve had, it’s never enough.  But we disciples never grieve without hope, because we know that the love that caused our Lord Jesus to lay down his life for us gives us the promise of being able to come together as family again, one day, in the house of our God.

    I find comfort in the words of this funeral Mass.  We are a people who steadfastly, courageously believe that there is hope in the midst of sorrow, joy in the midst of pain, resurrection that follows death, and love that survives the grave and leads us to the one who made us for himself.  The words of hope that we find in the prayers of this Mass lead us back to the Cross and Resurrection.  Death is not the end.  Love does not come to an end at the grave. 

    In a few moments, I will sing the preface to the Eucharistic Prayer.  I love the words of faith that it contains: “Indeed, for your faithful, Lord, life is changed, not ended, and when this earthly dwelling turns to dust, an eternal dwelling is made ready for them in heaven.”  We believe that Mom, and all our loved ones who have been people of faith, have been made new by passing through the gates of death.  Their happiness is our hope; the grace and blessing that they now share can one day be ours, too.

    Mom gave us so many wonderful memories.  Her wonderful sense of humor, her recipe for Sunday Gravy, the many Thanksgivings where she had everyone over to the house and cooked a feast for an army, the unconditional love and the joy that she had whenever we were together, and so much more.  Sharon, Peggy, and I will miss being able to share a Facebook meme with her or tell her about what’s going on in our lives, there will be that empty place on the living room sofa.  But the faith and love that she taught us will keep her memory alive in our minds and hearts, and for that we can be grateful.  We give thanks that we had the most wonderful mother, and grandmother, and that we were able to serve her in her last days, as she served us throughout our lives.

    And so it is with profound sadness, but also with ultimate trust in Almighty God that we commend my mother, our sister Julie to the Lord, knowing that his mercy is great and that his love will keep us united at the Eucharistic banquet until that day when death is conquered and sadness is banished and we are all caught up in God’s life forever.

    On the night before Mom died, we prayed together as we always did.  We said the guardian angel prayer, and then I gave a blessing, using the antiphon from the Canticle of Night Prayer as I did every night:

    Protect us, Lord, as we stay awake; watch over us as we sleep, that awake we may keep watch with Christ, and asleep, rest in his peace. Rest in Christ’s peace, Mom, you deserve it. You fought so much illness in the last several years, peace is a blessing.

    And so we pray: Eternal rest grant unto our sister Julia, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her. May her soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen.

  • Friday of the Fifth Week of Easter

    Friday of the Fifth Week of Easter

    Today’s readings

    Today’s scriptures speak to us about the essence of what it means to live a Christian life.  First, as we can see in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles, it means making a clean break with the ways that we have been tethered to the world.  For the newest members of the Church in that day, the rules and traditions had finally been settled.  Some of the members of the Church insisted the new members ought to be circumcised and comply with the many minutiae of the Jewish law.  But the Apostles remained firm that faith in Jesus was superior to the minutiae, and insisted only that the new Church members free themselves from any participation in idolatry and to keep their marriage covenants pure.  This freed them from the idolatrous tethers to the world, and would give them freedom in the Spirit.

    The second essence of living a Christian life comes to us in today’s Gospel reading, and that of course is to love.  But Jesus isn’t asking for just any kind of love: nothing superficial, not mere infatuation, and certainly not lust.  Jesus insists that his disciples love one another in the exactly same way that he loves them.  And he showed them, and us, what he meant by that when he suffered and died on the cross.  The disciple is expected to love sacrificially, unconditionally, just as Jesus has loved him, or her.

    So perhaps these readings can be for us a kind of examination of conscience.  In this Easter season, we need to be moving closer and closer in relationship with our Lord.  So we have to look closely at our lives for any ties to the world, and root them out, once and for all.  We have to look at our relationships, and see if the love that we show our brothers and sisters is sacrificial and unconditional, the same kind of love that we have received abundantly from our God.  We are reminded that we did not choose Christ, he chose us, and gave us gifts we never deserved.  Our thanksgiving for that great grace must be total devotion to him.

    Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

  • Thursday of the Fifth Week of Easter

    Thursday of the Fifth Week of Easter

    Today’s readings

    I love this Gospel reading because of the way it talks about love.  It would be easy enough to say that if we just love each other a little more, everything will be fine.  And there is some truth to that.  If we loved each other a bit more, things would certainly be better.  And if we loved each other perfectly, things would definitely approach the perfection God has in mind for the world.

    However, Jesus is going for a rather specific action of love here.  He says, “Remain in my love.” The word “remain” here is important; it is a translation of the Greek word meno, which is a word that connotes an abiding presence, a rootedness at one’s core.  Translating meno as“remain” is a bit too passive, kind of like sitting around and doing nothing, all covered with the love of God.  I think the better translation would be “live and breathe always in my love.”

    And that’s what Jesus goes on to say. “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.” So this remaining in Jesus’ love involves keeping his commandments.  What commandments does Jesus have in mind specifically? Well, they revolve around love. In Matthew’s Gospel, when the scholar of the law asks which of the commandments was the greatest, Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39)

    Putting God and neighbor first in the same way as Jesus did for us is what this kind of love entails.  We certainly have to note at this point that the way Jesus put us first was by laying down his life on the cross.  Remaining in Jesus’ love, the command he gives us today, involves loving others in a sacrificial way, putting aside our own interests and ambitions at times, dying to self, so that we can give life to others.

    But this is not to make ourselves doormats or even grumpy Christians.  This love leads to true joy, because in many ways it takes away the worry of having to think about ourselves.  “I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete.”  And so it is with great joy that we remain in Christ’s love; loving others as he has loved us – sacrificially and unconditionally.  And with this great love, as the Psalmist says, we “Proclaim God’s marvelous deeds to all the nations.”

    Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

  • The Fifth Sunday of Easter

    The Fifth Sunday of Easter

    Today’s readings

    I love to tell the children in school or religious education that the most important thing they can ever know about God is also one of the first things they ever learned about God.  And that is that God is love, and that God loves them very much.  Indeed, if we always keep his love for us and for the whole of his creation in mind, we will thrive in bad times and good times.  More about that in a minute.

    One of the most exciting lines in today’s Liturgy of the Word comes in the second reading: “The One who sat on the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new.’” The book of Revelation is all about the persecution of the early Christians, and it looks forward to the day when God would put all that persecution to an end. People were dying for the faith, being forced to give it up or be cast out of the synagogues. That left them open to the persecution of the Romans who demanded that they take up the worship of their pagan gods or face death. They were a people looking for newness, healing, and re-creation. So it is with great hope, then, that John reports what is heard in his vision: “Behold, I make all things new.”

    There is a clamor for newness, I think, in every age and society. We are a people who could use some re-creation even today. Look at the way our own faith is received and perceived in today’s world. The voices of death have such a foothold that they have many faithful Catholics believing that babies can be aborted in favor of personal choice. Sunday family worship takes a back seat to soccer games, baseball, and other activities, as if worshipping God were just one possible choice for the many ways people could spend the Lord’s day. Rudeness and hurtful language are used in every forum, and we call it entitlement. Prayer is not welcome in almost any public location, for fear that someone might be offended by our religiosity. Concern for the poor and needy, and a longing for peace and justice are bracketed in favor of capital gain. And that is to say nothing of those Christians in the Middle East, and many other parts of the world, who face danger and death for living their faith. We Christians today are persecuted just as surely as the early Christians, whether we pay for it with our lives or not. We Christians today are in need of hearing those great words: “Behold, I make all things new.”

    The good news is that as an Easter people, we can already see the newness that is God’s re-creation of our world. We know the story of our salvation: This world was steeped in sin and we are a people who, though created and blessed by our God, time after time and age after age turned away from our God. Every generation turned away in ways more brazen than the last. We are the heirs of that fickle behavior and we can all attest that our sins have led us down those same paths time after time in our own lives. But God, who would be justified in letting us live in the hell we seemed to prefer, could not live without us. So he sent his only Son into our world. He was born as one of us and walked among us, living the same life as ours in all things but sin. He reached out to us and preached the new life of the Gospel. And in the end, he died our death, the death we so richly deserved for our sins. And not letting that death have the last word in our existence, he rose to a new life that lasts forever. He did all that motivated by the only thing that could ever explain away our fickle sinfulness, and that motivation is love.

    I give you a new commandment: love one another.

    As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.

    This is how all will know that you are my disciples,

    if you have love for one another.

    The love that Jesus is talking about here is not some kind of emotional infatuation that fades as quickly as it grows. It is not a love that says “I will love you if…” Perhaps you have heard it yourself: “I will love you if you remain faithful to me.” “I will love you if you are successful in school.” “I will love you if you meet all my own selfish expectations.” “I will love you if you ignore my imperfections.” “I will love you if you become more perfect.” But the kind of love that says “I will love you if…” is not love at all. If God loved us if… we would be dead in our sins and there would be no reason to gather in this holy place day after day. If God loved us if… we would have nothing to look forward to in the life to come.

    No, God does not love us if… God loves us period. As we know, God is love. God is love itself, love in all its perfection. Love cannot be experienced in a vacuum, so God created us to love him and for him to love us. We are the creation of God’s love and God cannot not love us! The kind of love Jesus is talking about in today’s Gospel can only be summed up by the cross and resurrection. Jesus takes our sinfulness and brokenness upon himself, and stretches out his arms to die the death we deserve for our unfaithfulness. It wasn’t nails that held him to that cross, it was love, and we are totally undeserving of it. Even greater then, is the gift of the Resurrection in which we see that, because of love, death and sin have lost their sting. They no longer have the last word in our existence, because our God who is love itself has recreated the world in love.

    And with this great act of sacrifice that restores us to grace, Jesus also gives those who would be his disciples a commandment: Love one another. Which sounds like an easy enough thing to do. But the second line of that commandment gives us pause and reminds us that our love can’t just be a nice feeling. He says to us: “As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.” And we know how he has loved us, don’t we? Whenever we forget, all we have to do is look at the nearest crucifix. Our love must be sacrificial. Our love must be unconditional. Our love cannot be “I will love you if…” but instead, “I love you period.” Our love must be a love that re-creates the world in the image of God’s own love.

    But let me say a quick word of clarification here.  “I love you, period” does not mean I will become a doormat.  “I love you, period” does not mean you can do whatever you want and I will just accept that.  Jesus loved everyone, but he also told the woman caught in adultery, “Go and sin no more.”  He told the paralytic man that he healed near the waters of Bethesda: “Look, you are well; do not sin any more, so that nothing worse may happen to you.”  Loving someone sometimes means making the hard decision to insist that they do the right thing.  Loving someone sometimes means that we stop enabling their bad behavior.

    We live in a world that is broken and dark and evil at times. But our God has not abandoned us. Taking our death upon himself, he has risen triumphant over it. In spite of our unfaithfulness, he has re-created us all in his love. So now we disciples must continue his work of re-creation and love the world into a new existence.

    “Behold, I make all things new.”

    Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!