Love

Love and Action.

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My four year old son is very sweet. He can be a bit sour too, but very often he is super sweet. Regularly, he will stop whatever he is doing, turn towards my wife or I and just blurt out, “Mommy, I love you. Daddy, I love you.” He really means it. 

What is tough is when he does this and then his very next act is one of rebellion or mischief. He will shower us with words of love, but then disobey us with his actions. 

In the gospel this Sunday Jesus says, “Whoever loves me will keep my word.” I think Jesus is demonstrating a reality to this life. To really love someone is more than just words. To love someone is more than a feeling or a sentiment. Love isn’t just black and white. We can love well or love poorly. We can love to a greater degree and to a lesser degree. 

When my son says he loves me, but then blatantly and purposefully disobeys me, he is just being a normal four year old. What is it when I act this way towards God?

I tell God I love him all the time. I pray using words of adoration. I say all the right things. Then I turn around disobey God. Maybe you do this too. 

Love is more than words. Love is an action. If we are going to love God, we must, not only say the words, but do the deeds. We don’t earn God’s love, but if we really do love God, then we must act like it. Otherwise, I think we have to examine how genuine our love is. In other words, if I say I love God, but I don’t act like I do, do I? 

The growth mindset version of that same question might be a little different. If we want to love God well, how can our actions reflect our desire. In other words, how can our behavior more perfectly demonstrate what we believe.

Jesus himself said that the way that will show our love for him is by doing what he says. Obedience, no natural rebel’s favorite word, is one way to love well. Do you love God? Do you do what he says? If you answered Yes and then No, you have something to work on, like the rest of us. 

Live It: Take 5 minutes this weekend to think about your 3 highest values. What are the animating beliefs by which you live your life. Now ask someone else in your life to write 3 highest values based only on what they can observe from your life. Do they match up?

Sunday Readings for May 22, 2022.

They ran.

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When was the last time you ran, but not for exercise? As adults we don’t really just randomly run usually. Maybe we go for a run or we run as part of a social sports team we are on, but rarely if ever do we just run. My four year-old runs randomly all the time, but that is a different story.

Last summer I was on a hike up North with my 4 year-old son (he was 3 then). He didn’t want to walk any more and I didn’t want to carry him anymore. He was trailing about 20 feet behind me while I was walking backward and urging him along. Suddenly he pointed and shouted, “Dad, a bear!” Yeah right.

I walked back and held his hand and we walked to the to top of the ridge. When we got there, we looked down a crossing trail when about 50 feet away a large, black bear started crashing through the trees away from us. I picked up my son and slowly backed away down the trail away from the bear. When I was confident that the bear was far enough away that we weren’t in danger of looking like prey, I just started running while holding my son. Nothing like a 3/4 of a mile run with 30 lbs. of kid on my hip, a back pack, and hiking books. My point is, outside of exercise modern adults just don’t run very often.

Thinking more about it, the only times I ever run, as an adult, is when I am chasing or being chased by my kids (and the one bear time). The only times I run (when not exercising) is when I am either pursuing or being pursued by someone I love. 

In the gospel this Sunday we read about Mary of Magdala, Peter, and the Beloved Disciple finding the empty tomb. When Mary found the empty tomb early in the morning before the sun rose, she ran to tell Peter. Then Peter and the Beloved Disciple ran to see for themselves. This act of running for the ancient Jew is undignified. Adult men, in particular, didn’t run in ancient Israel. 

I think Mary, Peter, and John all run for the same reason we might run – for love. The loved Jesus and he loved them. In fact, Jesus is love incarnate. So when they find out his body is missing, they run to find him. 

The question for each of us – would we run to find Jesus? Do you run to Church? Do you run to prayer? Do you run to Mass or Confession? When you are far away from Jesus, do you run back to him? 

Obviously I am using the word “run” metaphorically. Are we eager to engage with our faith or is it is another thing in our day we “should” do. 

Sometimes love is doing things we don’t want to do when we don’t want to do them. But love is alway desiring greatly to be close to the object of our love. If we don’t really desire to be near to Jesus do we really love him?

We all have areas of our life that need conversion. We all have ways we don’t love Jesus well. If you are aware of times that you aren’t running to Jesus, maybe this Easter is the moment to ask Jesus to bring about significant change in your heart. Maybe this Easter is the moment when your desire for Jesus outruns your sin. Run to Jesus and ask for the desire to run. 

Live it: Go for a .75 mile run on Easter morning. This is the distance between the upper room and Calvary. Remember the run that Mary, Peter, and John made 2000 years ago. Can’t run? Move with haste to your morning prayer Easter morning. 

Easter Sunday Readings for April 17, 2022.

Gift Giving is an Art.

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Gift giving is an art. Some people are world class artists in gift giving. Others try hard and fail harder. Most of us have winners and the occasional dud of a gift. The worst gift I ever received was a pair of maroon socks when I was 6 years old from my grandparents. What were they thinking? These days I really enjoying a new pair of high quality socks for Christmas. Funny how time changes the success of that gift giving. 

In addition to the art of gift giving, there is an art to gift receiving. When I was a kid, I didn’t have that gift. When I received those aforementioned maroon socks, I couldn’t hide my displeasure and disappointment. Later my mom explained that saying thank you for an unexpected gift is not only polite, but it’s wise because you never know if you actually will want or use that unwanted gift, eventually. 

In the gospel, we hear about Jesus Christ giving us an incredible gift. This Sunday we will hear Mark’s account of Jesus instituting the Eucharistic Feast at the last supper. Jesus gives us his body and his blood to eat and drink. As challenging as it is the understand, Jesus isn’t speaking metaphorically when he says, “Take it; This is my body,” and “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.”

This gift of his body and blood is mirrored in his final moments on the Cross, when Jesus offers up his body and his blood on our behalf. It is in the cross that Jesus totally offers himself on our behalf. And so, when he gives us the gift of his body and blood at the last summer and at every Mass since then, we know he is offering himself completely to us. 

What did Jesus give us? Everything.

What does the ultimate gift giver look like? Jesus. What does a good gift receiver look like? Going by my mom’s advice a good gift receiver hubby receives the gift and doesn’t try and deny it. They offer thanks sincerely and explicitly. They put that gift to good use as soon as makes sense. They don’t waste or neglect the gift. 

For us that means that humbly receive Jesus in the Eucharist as Mass each Sunday. We don’t deny the gift either by skipping Mass or receiving unworthily. We offer out thanks to God during the entire Mass, but especially after receiving communion. When we leave Mass we go out and seek to live Christ centered, holy lives. In other words, we put the grace of receiving Jesus’ body and blood to good use. We love our neighbors as Jesus would love them. We don’t waste the grace or neglect God’s continued love and faithfulness. 

If you need a more concrete example, there is no better one than Mary, the mother of Jesus. Mary perfectly, humbly receives the gift of having the Devine within her (she was the first!). She is grateful. He puts the gift to good use. She never neglects Jesus, even when he was dying on the cross and it was painful and inconvenient to remain near to him. 

We all want to be good givers. As Catholics we need to grow to become good gift receivers as well. 

Live it: Go to Mass this Sunday and make the following prayer your single priority during Mass, “Jesus, Thank you.” 

Sunday Readings for June 6, 2021.

Bless this Mess. (I can’t see.)

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The other day my wife said, “I think I sleep better when our bedroom is picked up. You know, nice and tidy and clean.” 

This mystified me. I honestly can’t understand this at all. When I am laying down with the lights out and my eyes closed, I don’t see the mess at all. Even if I open my eyes, I have to lean over the side of the bed to see the pile of clothes or books or whatever. 

Having said that, I totally believe her. I have no doubt she does sleep better when things are picked up. My wife has always been able to see things I can’t. Whether it is a mess, dust, or the winter hat that no one else can find, my wife has super vision for certain things. 

In the gospel this Sunday, Jesus explains that at the end those who help the least and most vulnerable will be saved. Those who don’t help, will not. The funny thing is that neither those who helped and were saved, nor those who didn’t help and were damned saw Jesus in the poorest of the poor. They both lacked vision. 

When I sat down to reflect on this scripture, I thought I was going to write about how we must be able to see Jesus in the poor and marginalized. We have to be able to see Jesus in unexpected places in the same way my wife sees messes. We have to have super powered vision. 

But that isn’t what this gospel says. No, instead of super vision, we just have to have super willingness. We don’t have to perfectly see Jesus in every homeless person we meet. No, we just have to be willing to help. We don’t have to see Jesus in the hardened criminal in prison, we just have to be willing to visit him. We don’t have to see Jesus in the lonely dementia patient, we just have to be willing to call them. We don’t have to see Jesus in any of the people who have been pushed to the side and how are impoverished, we just have to be willing to love them. 

You don’t have to have super powers to love Jesus well. You don’t have to have super vision to see Jesus in unexpected people. You just have to do it. 

Loving Jesus isn’t a matter of ability. It all comes down to willingness. Are you willing to love the poor and vulnerable? Are you willing to love even when it is difficult? Are willing to love people who don’t deserve it? No matter what your answer is, talk to Jesus about it. 

LIVE IT: Are you willing, but don’t know how? Find a food shelf and bring an extra bag of groceries to them. I guarantee it will help someone. At HNOJ you can support IOCP (and find out more about IOCP) by clicking here.

Readings for Sunday November 22nd, 2020.

Useless.

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The other day my two and a half year old son made a gigantic mess with flour. It wasn’t entirely his fault. He’s two, what did I expect? We had gotten out some flour for him to make homemade play-do with, but didn’t move fast enough and he started spreading the flour all over the table and floor and chair and himself. I tried my hardest to be cool and play it off as no big deal, but I failed when he started grinding the flour into the chair cushion with his tennis shoes. 

After I calmed down a bit, I got reflecting on the kind of children I want to raise. Of course I want them to be well behaved and cleanly. I desire for them to follow directions and be obedient. I also want them to have spirit and joy and fortitude and little twinkle of mischief. I want to raise kids who have gumption. 

I think God wants this in his children too. In the gospel this Sunday Jesus tells a parable about a master who has three servants. With each servant, the master leaves a large amount of money and then he goes on a long trip. When he returns he asks each servant to tell him how much money they earned with the wealth that he had given them. The first and second servants doubled their money, but the third servant says he was fearful of the master and so he hid the money and didn’t earn anything additional. At the end of the parable the master calls the third servant useless and throws out into the darkness.

The masters calls this third servant wicked, but in the end this servant is wicked because he is useless. 

Open rebellion against God isn’t the only way deny God. Few of us do rebel against God on purpose. Most of us think we lead pretty good lives and don’t sin too badly. The reality is that rather than commit real evil, we often fail to do real good. 

It’s not enough that we just avoid big sins. Following Jesus isn’t only about not doing the bad stuff. Following Jesus is about choosing to seek out the good stuff too. Jesus Christ made disciples who ended up being wild eyed radicals. Followers of Jesus have been intense and extreme and willing to do anything to follow Jesus for centuries. If you read the lives of the Saints you’ll see some wild stories and no shortage of gumption. 

Some think that opposite of love is hate. It’s not. The opposite of love is apathy. Hate is passion in the opposite direction. Apathy is nothing. Apathy is lame and boring and useless. If following Jesus means loving God and loving neighbor then we better make sure we are apathetic toward God and neighbor. 

If we are serious about following Jesus, then we should be serious about living lives of risk and adventure, lives full of love. We need to look forward to invest what God has given us. We shouldn’t wait for the perfect time to help or love. We should live with a little gumption. God help us if we are useless. 

Live it: Read the lives of some Saints. See if you can find some gumption. If you are looking for a list of saints, try this one. 

Sunday Readings for November 15th, 2020.

Simple.

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In a popular TV comedy one female character is remarking about the male character that she is romantically entangled with by saying, “(He) is the most complicated man that I’ve ever met. I mean, who says exactly what they’re thinking? What kind of game is that?” We live in a world so used to misdirection and filtered conversation that to encounter someone who actually says what they are thinking can be startling.

In the gospel this weekend, a scholar of the law asks Jesus a simple question, “Teacher, which commandment of the law is the greatest?” He isn’t trying to trick Jesus, but is testing to see if Jesus knows the answer.

Jesus responds by reciting the Shema, a Jewish law found in Deuteronomy. Then he adds the law of love for others. What is the greatest law? Love God. Love others. Love well. 

Jesus doesn’t mince words or talk about how this may be interpreted. No, the law of God is straightforward and simple. Love. 

We struggle with this in three ways. First, we often get the word love wrong. In English we use the word love to mean a number of different emotions, behaviors, and attitudes. In the last week I’ve said I love pizza and I love my wife. I do not love them in the same way. I think it’s helpful to understand the Greek word for love that is used by Jesus here. 

Agape is a self sacrificial love. It is a self giving love. This is love that wills the good of the other. It isn’t affection, friendship, or romantic love (though they can and should have forms of Agape within their practice). What kind of love should we have for God? One that put’s God’s will above our own. What kind of love should we have for others? The kind of love that wants what is best for them even if it is difficult for us.

Second, we tend to complicate things when they seem simple. It’s as if we say, “Well, that can’t be all there is. It must be more complicated than that.” And then we go and muddy the waters of the commandment. We rationalize and theorize the kind of behavior we would prefer rather than what Jesus prescribes.

Third, the command is simple, but follow through on it is challenging. Even if we know, we fail to do it. It’s hard to make a gift of self to someone else. Love is costly. To love someone else costs us greatly and to love God costs us everything.

The question we have to ask ourselves is whether or not we are going to seek to follow Jesus’s simple command to love God and love others? Once we make that decision, now comes the work of loving well. 

LIVE IT: Double challenge this week. You can do this for a person or for God.  First, tell someone you love them. Stop them, look them in the eye and tell them. Second, show them that you love them. 

It’s Not Fair.

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If you are a parent, then it is likely that you’ve heard someone complain that something isn’t fair. If you are parent like me, you’ve heard this phrase yelled at you while one child gestures wildly at another child. I don’t need to explain to you that comparing ourselves to others is a death sentence to loving them well and being happy. If you want to lose your joy, then start comparing yourself to others.

When I would yell at my parents about the fairness of their parenting my younger sister and I, most often their response was, “Fair doesn’t mean equal.” I never liked that answer. I used to think that equal portions, the same rules, etc absolutely means equal, but then I started to say it to my kids and it started to make sense.

In the gospel this Sunday Jesus tells a parable about a man with a vineyard who hires workers throughout the day and at sundown pays them all the same wage. Whether someone worked twelve hours or one hour, they all got a full day’s wage. The workers who worked a full day complain that they didn’t get what they deserved. The vineyard owner explains that they were paid what was promised, which is true. Then he explains that it is his choice if he also decides to pay the partial workers the same amount.

As the person who holds strict rules about standing in line and always returns the shopping cart to the cart corral (yes that is their technical name), I still struggle with this answer. I want to shout at Jesus, “BUT THIS STILL ISN’T FAIR!”And maybe I’m right. Maybe it isn’t fair, but it is love.

God isn’t fair, he is love. He is extraordinary love.

God is wild generosity and total self-gift especially when someone doesn’t deserve it. Who doesn’t deserve a full portion of God’s love? Me. You. All of us. Few of us started working at dawn in the vineyard and none of us have worked perfectly all day long. We don’t deserve the wage God wants to pay us. So who are we in the story? We are the workers who come at midday and the end of the day, and yet because of God’s generosity, we still get a full portion.

What is the wage we are paid? Paul says that the wages of sin is death. So what is our wage for working in the vineyard? Life. The reward at the end of the day of working is a life of eternal bliss with God Almighty! There is no half measure of Heaven. If Heaven is infinite joy and perfect communion with God, then those who receive it won’t have more or less than someone else. There is no comparison in Heaven because everyone there is perfectly satisfied. More and less no longer matter in a state of perfect communion with God. 

Finally, this gospel teaches us that it is never too late to receive that full day’s wage. If you are reading this, but have never committed your life to Jesus Christ, if you are reading this and aren’t in full communion with God, now is the time to reach out and take the job. Say a prayer that puts yourself at God’s mercy and God’s will. No matter how far away you feel. No matter how long you’ve been gone, God will welcome you back with extraordinary love. 

LIVE IT: Tell God you want to work in his vineyard. Actively seek to commit yourself to God. Use whatever words come from you heart. 

Sunday Readings for September 20th, 2020.

You’re dead to me.

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I give up on people. I do. Most of us do, I think. If someone burns us enough, we get to the point where we can no longer give them another second, third, fourth chance. I’m sure someone has given up on me too. It is very likely I failed someone, said the wrong thing, or didn’t say the right thing too many times for someone.

Conventional wisdom and, in fact, the cardinal virtues probably lead us to believe we can write them off. Prudence tells us that we probably shouldn’t trust that person any more. And yes, that is probably wise. Justice tells us they aren’t fulfilling their duty and so what we owe them has changed. Temperance would have us reach a reasonable amount of latitude before we write them off. Fortitude might invite us to be strong in our stern rejection of the other. 

While it feels wrong to speak of giving up on someone in the abstract, in the particular, I bet you and I can think of a least one person we gave up on because their actions didn’t follow their words. 

In the Gospel this Sunday, Jesus instructs Peter that he not simply forgive someone, but that he should perpetually forgive them – seventy seven or seven times seven times. Jesus surely teaches virtue, so why can he teach this unlimited forgiveness? Perhaps it is because the most central virtue for Jesus isn’t prudence or justice, but it is Love. We forgive over and over again because of love. 

Of course that doesn’t mean we abandon the other virtues. God’s love is just. God’s love is prudent. Forgiving and loving doesn’t mean we fully trust someone not worthy of our trust. However love demands that we never write anyone off. 

God’s love is exactly that for us. We need God’s forgiveness every single day. God never gives up on us. God never writes us off. God gives us all the chances we need and then some. There is no amount of failure we can accomplish that will cause God to give up on saving us. 

In this Sunday’s gospel parable, the servant begs for forgiveness. This is an essential aspect of our forgiveness. God won’t force forgiveness on us. We must want it too. 

Live It:
Mini Challenge: Ask God for forgiveness or simply go to Confession. 

Big Challenge: Reach out to someone you have written off. Just make contact and say hello. See how God uses that act.

Sunday Readings September 13th, 2002.

Judgemental

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I made fajitas the other night and they were delicious. Marinated, grilled skirt steak. Cast iron peppers and onions. Tortillas warmed on the grill. Fresh Pico de Gallo and Guacamole to top things off. Shared on a warm night with a slight breeze on a table set up in the shade of a tree in our beautiful backyard. It was nearly perfect. 

To name the food and atmosphere and company as enjoyable and good is to make a judgement. I made a judgement as to whether the food was delicious or not. I judged the weather and the shade and the table we ate on. I judged the company. I made judgements about the pleasurable aspects of my evening and judged it to be good. 

We live in a time when being judgmental has been seen as negative. I have worked on trying to be less judgmental. But the gospel this Sunday challenged this negative view of judgement. I am convinced that judging things is actually a good and necessary thing. We should be judgmental. Let me explain. 

Judging things keeps us safe. In the gospel, Jesus tells a parable of the farmer who plants good wheat, but an enemy sows weeds in the same field and they both grow up together. The weed that Jesus is describing is called darnel. When it is young, it looks just like wheat. It is difficult to distinguish the two. As it grows it wraps its roots around other plants. To pull up darnel would be to pull up other crops.

Also, it’s deadly poisonous. The farmer and his servants have to judge the difference between darnel and wheat if they don’t want to be poisoned. If we want to live, we have to make judgements between what is harmful to us and what is good for us. 

Only when we judge do we appreciate. We aren’t grateful for the wheat, the good things, in our lives if we don’t judge them as good. How do we know that Fajitas are good or bad? We judge them. We don’t know that something is Beautiful, Good, or True unless we make an assessment. 

While the gospel may give us good reason to judge, it also comes with clear warning about judgement. We can judge behaviors, material goods, or beliefs, but that doesn’t mean we should judge people. In the gospel, the harvester and the farmer judge the weeds from the wheat, but the farmer tells the slaves not to pull the weeds until harvest time.

To that end, it’s not our job to judge people. It isn’t the right time. God waits to judge people until their deaths and the end of time because he wants to give each of us every single opportunity to change. I don’t know about you, but I appreciate the time. I need it. 

Whenever we judge people we do it on way too little information. We are poor judges of the human heart because we just can’t know all the information we would need to make a sound judgement.

Also, we shouldn’t judge people because we often base that judgement off of the wrong or incomplete information. It is like judging whether the fajitas are good based on the shape of the pasture where the cow who became our meal grazed in. Not enough and wrong information to make a judgement. 

We should be judgmental. We judge to avoid evil and to choose good. How?

The judge of judgement should always be love. 

If we judge with anything other than love as our guiding principle, we will fail to judge well. God’s judgement and God’s love aren’t opposing forces, but in fact they work for the same end – our intimate and ultimate union with God forever. 

Live It: Next time you encounter someone, whether you know them well or not, use your power of judgement to ask this question, “What can I do to love this person well right now?”

Breath. Breath. Breath.

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I rolled over the other night to find myself face to face with my beautiful, beloved bride. She was sound asleep and was, how shall I say it, melodiously breathing deeply. It was then that a warm gust of moist breath hit me in the face. It struck me that it felt like it had been a long time since someone breathed in my face. In this time of social distancing and mask wearing, I haven’t felt the warmth of someone else’s breath for a while, thank God. 

Truth be told, it’s not like I was getting explicitly breathed on a lot in the past either. It is such an intimate thing to happen, we just don’t normally feel other adults breaths on our face. Sure when you have kids it will happen that one of them will climb into your arms, say something cute, sigh, and then breath out deeply all over you. But how often would you purposefully share breath with another adult and know it, feel it? Rarely right? 

So it strikes me as odd that in this Sunday’s Gospel Jesus, in the midst of his post resurrection appearance, breathed on his disciples. Can you imagine being the disciples? Your best friend, leader, and messiah actually rises from the dead, he shows up, says a couple things, and then breaths on you. Why?

Jesus’ breathing onto/into his disciples reminds us of the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament. In Genesis 2:7 God made man out of the dust of the ground and “blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” Just as God gave life to man by making this carbon bag filled with mostly water into a living, breathing, conscious thing, Jesus breaths the breath of life into the disciples. His breath gives them new life, a life in the Spirit and as the Church. 

When people talk about hearing a good talk or reading a particularly good religious book or quote, what do they call it? Inspiring. If someone shouts “Eureka! I’ve figured it out.” They have been inspired. Jesus literally expires his breath and by doing so  inspires the disciples, and indeed the whole Church, to complete his mission. Jesus has preached and commanded and now Jesus is giving inspiration to his followers one last time.

The Hebrew word for God’s breath that was used in Genesis 2:7 is ruach. This word can be used for breath and often is. The other meaning of ruach is spirit. By breathing on his followers, Jesus is literally giving them the Holy Spirit. He is breathing his very life and indeed his Spirit into the disciples and into the whole Church. The very next thing Jesus says is, “Receive the Holy Spirit…” Boom. 

This Sunday we should probably refrain from receiving anyone else’s breath. But we can and should know the intimacy Jesus wants to have with us. How close? He wants to breath on us. We can know with confidence that Jesus Christ has and will breath his life, his inspiration, and his Holy Spirit into the Church – into us! Come Holy Spirit!

LIVE IT: On Sunday, take 12 big, deep, from your tummy, breaths. With each one pray, “Come Holy Spirit!”, either when you breath in or out.