Homily for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2014

Exodus 22: 20-26

1 Thessalonians 1: 5c-10

Matthew 22: 34-40

In today’s Gospel, we have one of those rare encounters with the Pharisees, where they were not trying to trap Jesus.  We see a scholar of the Jewish Law asking Jesus which is the greatest commandment in the Law.  This is a traditional rabbinic practice, to ask a question about the Torah, and then debate over the answer.  If you go into a school that trains Jewish rabbis, you may see a room of students, one on one, debating about the meaning of some passage of Scripture.  Sometimes, the debate is quite vigorous.  Now keep in mind, the rabbis of Jesus’ time counted 613 commandments in the Law.  Out of all those commandments, Jesus picks one as the greatest, and also describes the second greatest commandment.

“You shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.”  How many of us squirm just a little when we hear Jesus say to us what it means to be in a relationship with the Lord Our God, the depth of the commitment that is being demanded of us:  all of our hearts, all of our souls, all of our minds.  It is not enough just to come here to church every week, to take a few minutes every day to say a prayer, or read some Scripture.  As good and important those actions are.  No, we are to strive to be present to God every second of every day of our lives.  We are called to live lives that give praise to the goodness of God, that offer thanks for God’s gifts to us. We are called to be in an intimate, personal relationship with the Father. 

Now, we all have to acknowledge that for many of us, this may not be easy.  We know from our own personal relationships with others, that we can fall short of the mark, that at times we will stumble, make mistakes, and not be fully present to the other.  However, the Father offers us the grace to overcome our faults and weaknesses.  Especially here, right now, He seeks to inspire us through His Word, and to strengthen us through the Eucharist.  We need only to open our hearts, our souls totally to the transformative power of the Father’s love.  We can then, in turn, be able to return that love.

And this is where the second greatest commandment that Jesus declared comes into play.  “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  Now, let me repeat that, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  In order to love others, we need to first be able to love ourselves..  In other words, we need to be able to accept ourselves, with all our strengths, our gifts, our talents, and our weaknesses, our faults, and our failings.  And for some of us, maybe all of us, that may not be such an easy thing.  But if we accept the fact that God loves us, no matter how good or how bad we are, if we have experienced that wonderful love, then we can learn to love ourselves.  And if the God, who loves us, also created and loves all the people around us; how can we not care for them also.  And I am not just talking about loving our family members, our friends, and acquaintances; we are called to love everyone, the strangers, people that do not fit in our communities, the social outcasts, the “aliens” in our midst.  We are called to love those who are not nice to us, to those who have done us harm.  If we are followers of Jesus Christ, we cannot make distinctions; everyone is a brother and sister, everyone deserves our care and concern. 

“You shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  Jesus describes these as the greatest of the commandments; that must be the foundation of all those other rules, laws, commandments, and as we have seen, the most challenging.  How well we strive to live these commandments to love can be an example to the rest of society around us.  That from us, the Good News of Lord will sound forth, and can, and will be a beacon of light to the world.

My Fifth Sunday of Easter 2013 Homily

“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.”  (Gospel according to John)

Love one another; this is the new commandment that Jesus gave to the Apostles, as recorded by John the Evangelist, on that night before his Passion, death and resurrection.  This theme of love, loving one another, we see throughout all of the Gospels.  Jesus expresses this commandment in different ways in the Good News as written by Mark, Matthew, and Luke.  The greatest commandment is to love God with all our heart, soul and mind.  And we are to love one another as we love ourselves.   But what does Jesus mean when he commands us to love one another.  Sometimes when we hear the word “love,” we have images of little hearts floating around lovers.  We think of spouses being kind to one another; parents being nice to their children; brothers and sisters being kind to one another.  Everything is all very nice and sweet, like in a movie we see on the Hallmark Channel.

Let me remind us all again of what Jesus said: “As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.”  Look at the crucifix!  “As I have loved you...”  Jesus loved us so much that emptied himself totally for our sake, was willing to suffer and die for us, so that we can be free from the power of sin and death.  He, who is the Messiah, the Son of God, was willing to become a servant for all, healing the sick, freeing those possessed by evil, welcoming and caring for the outcast. 

It is His example that we are to follow.  Whenever, wherever the opportunity presents itself, we must be ready to feed the hungry, care for the sick, welcome the stranger.  And our love is not just restricted to members of our family, our parish, our faith, or the “nice people.”  Our love must be given to those whom we are uncomfortable with; the ones we would have called strange.  Love must be given to those who hate us, are unkind to us. We are called to love them just as strongly as our families and friends.

Now to love as Jesus expects us to love a challenge!  But it is not impossible, we see in the lives of the saints, persons who have been able to love others totally.  Francis of Assisi lived among lepers, cleaning and bandaging their wounds, as did Damian of Molokai, Theresa of Calcutta lived among the sick and dying, giving them love and comfort.  Dorothy Day lived among the poor, the addicts, the alcoholics, the disturbed of the streets of New York, and welcomed them all.  And there are many more out there and in our midst, in big ways and small, who love others as Christ loves us.  But I will be the first to admit, it is a challenge, and we are not all going to be able to succeed keeping this commandment.  In fact at times it may seem impossible, but that is when we turn to Him who is the source of all love, Jesus.  We seek inspiration from Him through His words in Scripture.  We gain strength from Him when we receive Him through the Eucharist.  He will help us overcome our weaknesses; give us the courage to reach out to others, in love.

And when we love as Jesus has loved us, we will be evangelizers to the world.  When we love as Jesus loves us, we will be living the Good News.

Proclaiming Christ by Their Life and Words

“They have been made living members of the Church by being buried and raised with Christ in baptism; they have been united more intimately with the Church by profession. Therefore, they should go forth as witnesses and instruments of her mission among all people, proclaiming Christ by their life and words.” (Art. 6a, Rule of the Secular Franciscan Order)

June 30th is the feast day of Blessed Raymond Lull, a Spaniard who lived from 1235 to 1315. He was at one time a member of the court of the king of Mallorca, but after hearing a sermon, he suddenly desired to convert his life. He became a Secular Franciscan and became a hermit for about nine years. He left his solitude when he was inspired to promote missionary work, by founding a college to train future missionaries in foreign languages and in techniques on how to debate with Muslims over points concerning the faith. He traveled through Europe, trying to convince bishops and the Pope on the importance of setting up such colleges in their dioceses. Although he remained a layman, he himself journeyed to North Africa in 1314 as a missionary. Unfortunately, he was stoned by a mob of angry Arabs; he died from his wounds back in Mallorca.

As mentioned above, Raymond, although heavily involved in missionary work, never felt called to be ordained, and remained a layperson. One of the important things that came out of the Second Vatican Council was the realization that the laity has a role in the mission of Church to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ; that fulfilling that mission is not just restricted to the clergy and religious. Some of us are called to be teachers, catechists, but the majority of us make Jesus known to the world by the way we live His Gospel; by the way we obey His command to love one another.