Homily
30th Sunday in Ordinary Time
23 October 2011
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
Daily Readings
Are you a tea partier or an occupier? Are you patient with Turner Gill or ready for a change? Are you optimistic or pessimistic about our country and the world? Are you excited about the new changes to the Roman Missal coming up, or does it not matter to you?
Whatever your opinion on these and the myriad of things big and small facing our church, our university, our country and the world, the readings for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time remind us that if we dare to call ourselves Christian, there is one thing that is non-negotiable for us. There is one thing we must all think and do. We must grow in love for our neighbor. This is more than tolerating them or being nice to them. We must grow in love for our neighbor. We must love them as we love ourselves.
This love of neighbor is actually a corollary to the first commandment given by Jesus - that we must love God with all our heart and mind and strength. When asked for the one greatest commandment, Jesus gives two, reminding us that all the 600+ commandments of the Torah are valid because they all interpret each other. But in a simpler, more perfect way, these two great commandments interpret each other. We can evaluate our love of God by how much we love our neighbor, and we can evaluate how much we love our neighbor by how much we love God.
Without love of God first, love of neighbor is always at risk of being incomplete, is always at risk of running out. God is love. He is the source of love. Without him there would be no one to love. So unless we connect ourselves to this unending fire of love, by loving him with all our heart and mind and strength, we are always at risk of our own human, calculated love growing cold. That is why a couple wanting to get married should work on their relationship with God first, always desiring him to be the center of their love, always desiring to love him more than they love each other, knowing him to be the source of their love and seal and guarantee of their marriage. What is more, loving God first means that we will approach loving our neighbor respecting the love with which they were created. We will love not only the person, but the image and likeness of God that is essential to the dignity of every person. Loving God first corrects us from hideous errors like believing that killing an unborn child is the more loving thing. Loving God first means that we will strive to know and love persons as God knows and loves them, that we will be especially attentive to the words of Jesus to love one another just as I love you. St. John says that this is how we know what love is: Christ gave up his life for us, so we too must give up our lives for our brothers. On this World Mission Sunday, missionaries like Mother Teresa are the model for every Christian. It is a great call and privilege as a Christian to be more like her, who in loving God with all her heart and mind and strength, found everyone to be her neighbor not by geography but from the inside out. A true Christian, then, does the biggest disservice to his neighbor when he fails first to love God with all his heart and mind and strength, for it is God's perfect love alone that can fully redeem a human person.
Yet perhaps what is more remarkable about Mother Teresa is that when her own relationship with God ran cold, and her faith was being tested, her love for neighbor remained. She remained true to her mission to love because she understood that to grow perfect in love is not to grow perfect in feeling, but to grow perfect in obedience to the will of another. Thus, Jesus on the cross fulfills his two-fold commandment to love God and neighbor perfectly, by handing himself over to his enemies and to his Father's will simultaneously. It only takes a simple glance at the cross to remind us of what love and happiness really is. It is the freedom to abandon ourselves to a mission that is bigger than ourselves, one that goes beyond feelings, so that Jesus can feel both abandoned by the Father and hated by his enemies, and still love them both perfectly. On the cross we see why when asked for the greatest commandment Jesus gives two commandments, for internally to him they are one, and externally on the cross we see the two commandments fulfilled simultaneously. Mother Teresa too was guided in her later years not by her feelings, but by taking up her cross and following Jesus. She was faithful to the end because she was faithful not to a feeling, but to a beautiful mission, and she was ready to love God for his own sake, and for her love of God to be measured by how much she loved her neighbor.
It is the great privilege and responsibility for every Christian to everyday be able to see Jesus Christ and ourselves more readily in our neighbor, to be more ready to believe their lives are as real as our own, and be more ready to show that we love God more completely by growing in love for our enemies. A Christian who truly loves God in the end does not know anyone to be an enemy, for our greatest enemy is always ourselves, and does not know anyone who is not a neighbor, for the greatest evil is always to be alienated from ourselves by losing God. We should be shamed as Christians always when humanitarians do more for the most vulnerable than we Christians do, for we have our relationship with Jesus Christ as both inspiration and sure guide for us. We should want to meet a higher standard, the highest standard, because Christ has first loved us. God reveals clearly to the Israelites, all of us should be willing to be judged by how the poorest and most vulnerable are doing in our midst.
There can be legitimate difference in prudential judgments between tea partiers and occupiers about how best to promote justice and the common good. Most of us fall between the extremes. What we cannot be moderate about however, is our responsibility to fall deeply in love with God and our neighbor. If the world is getting more contentious, and there are plenty who think things need to get much worse before they can get better, the one thing we cannot allow to happen is for this rancor to become more important than our love of God, our mission given by him in this life, and our eternal salvation. Amen.
30th Sunday in Ordinary Time
23 October 2011
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
Daily Readings
Are you a tea partier or an occupier? Are you patient with Turner Gill or ready for a change? Are you optimistic or pessimistic about our country and the world? Are you excited about the new changes to the Roman Missal coming up, or does it not matter to you?
Whatever your opinion on these and the myriad of things big and small facing our church, our university, our country and the world, the readings for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time remind us that if we dare to call ourselves Christian, there is one thing that is non-negotiable for us. There is one thing we must all think and do. We must grow in love for our neighbor. This is more than tolerating them or being nice to them. We must grow in love for our neighbor. We must love them as we love ourselves.
This love of neighbor is actually a corollary to the first commandment given by Jesus - that we must love God with all our heart and mind and strength. When asked for the one greatest commandment, Jesus gives two, reminding us that all the 600+ commandments of the Torah are valid because they all interpret each other. But in a simpler, more perfect way, these two great commandments interpret each other. We can evaluate our love of God by how much we love our neighbor, and we can evaluate how much we love our neighbor by how much we love God.
Without love of God first, love of neighbor is always at risk of being incomplete, is always at risk of running out. God is love. He is the source of love. Without him there would be no one to love. So unless we connect ourselves to this unending fire of love, by loving him with all our heart and mind and strength, we are always at risk of our own human, calculated love growing cold. That is why a couple wanting to get married should work on their relationship with God first, always desiring him to be the center of their love, always desiring to love him more than they love each other, knowing him to be the source of their love and seal and guarantee of their marriage. What is more, loving God first means that we will approach loving our neighbor respecting the love with which they were created. We will love not only the person, but the image and likeness of God that is essential to the dignity of every person. Loving God first corrects us from hideous errors like believing that killing an unborn child is the more loving thing. Loving God first means that we will strive to know and love persons as God knows and loves them, that we will be especially attentive to the words of Jesus to love one another just as I love you. St. John says that this is how we know what love is: Christ gave up his life for us, so we too must give up our lives for our brothers. On this World Mission Sunday, missionaries like Mother Teresa are the model for every Christian. It is a great call and privilege as a Christian to be more like her, who in loving God with all her heart and mind and strength, found everyone to be her neighbor not by geography but from the inside out. A true Christian, then, does the biggest disservice to his neighbor when he fails first to love God with all his heart and mind and strength, for it is God's perfect love alone that can fully redeem a human person.
Yet perhaps what is more remarkable about Mother Teresa is that when her own relationship with God ran cold, and her faith was being tested, her love for neighbor remained. She remained true to her mission to love because she understood that to grow perfect in love is not to grow perfect in feeling, but to grow perfect in obedience to the will of another. Thus, Jesus on the cross fulfills his two-fold commandment to love God and neighbor perfectly, by handing himself over to his enemies and to his Father's will simultaneously. It only takes a simple glance at the cross to remind us of what love and happiness really is. It is the freedom to abandon ourselves to a mission that is bigger than ourselves, one that goes beyond feelings, so that Jesus can feel both abandoned by the Father and hated by his enemies, and still love them both perfectly. On the cross we see why when asked for the greatest commandment Jesus gives two commandments, for internally to him they are one, and externally on the cross we see the two commandments fulfilled simultaneously. Mother Teresa too was guided in her later years not by her feelings, but by taking up her cross and following Jesus. She was faithful to the end because she was faithful not to a feeling, but to a beautiful mission, and she was ready to love God for his own sake, and for her love of God to be measured by how much she loved her neighbor.
It is the great privilege and responsibility for every Christian to everyday be able to see Jesus Christ and ourselves more readily in our neighbor, to be more ready to believe their lives are as real as our own, and be more ready to show that we love God more completely by growing in love for our enemies. A Christian who truly loves God in the end does not know anyone to be an enemy, for our greatest enemy is always ourselves, and does not know anyone who is not a neighbor, for the greatest evil is always to be alienated from ourselves by losing God. We should be shamed as Christians always when humanitarians do more for the most vulnerable than we Christians do, for we have our relationship with Jesus Christ as both inspiration and sure guide for us. We should want to meet a higher standard, the highest standard, because Christ has first loved us. God reveals clearly to the Israelites, all of us should be willing to be judged by how the poorest and most vulnerable are doing in our midst.
There can be legitimate difference in prudential judgments between tea partiers and occupiers about how best to promote justice and the common good. Most of us fall between the extremes. What we cannot be moderate about however, is our responsibility to fall deeply in love with God and our neighbor. If the world is getting more contentious, and there are plenty who think things need to get much worse before they can get better, the one thing we cannot allow to happen is for this rancor to become more important than our love of God, our mission given by him in this life, and our eternal salvation. Amen.
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