June 13, 2010
Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Rev. Joe McCloskey, SJ
“The LORD on his part has forgiven your sin.” 2 Samuel 12:13b
For through the law I died to the law, that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me. Galatians 2:19-20
So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; hence, she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little. Luke 7:47
Piety
Love of God is what Piety is all about. Love is not something we can deserve. The heart has reasons the mind will never comprehend. The trip from the head to the heart takes a lifetime. It is the shortest distance, but the longest journey of life. We learn to love in our parents’ love for us. God’s love for us antedates our conception. We were loved before we arrived in our mother’s womb. God has first loved us and we are capable of loving back. We learn what love is all about in the love of God for us. Christ tells us he loves us even as the Father has loved him. Christ invites us to live in his love. How much we love is seen in the ways we give our lives for the sake of another. Piety is our love affair with Christ. God is love and he who lives in love, lives in God. There is no limit on God’s love for us once we realize he loved us so much that he gave us his only son. God loves us so much he wants to be one of us. The Son loves us so much that he dies for us. Do I love God so much, I am willing to die for Christ? Even as Christ is willing to be one of us, am I willing to be one with Christ? Our human love is modeled on Christ’s love for us in his dying on the cross for our redemption. Because God is pure love, there is no limit on the love of God. When we touch God’s love, we touch all of God’s love for us. Yet it is true to say that we can limit how much of God’s love we have. When we say we do not deserve God’s love that is all too true. Love is a free gift of God and we could never deserve it. God’s love is in all that happens in our lives. The Hidden Life grace allows God’s love to be in the insignificant of our lives. Christ’s death on the cross allows our suffering to take on the meaning of Christ’s suffering when we join our suffering to the suffering of Christ. In our Baptism we are born again into God’s love. Christ gives us all of himself. We have the freedom to accept as much of God’s love in Christ as we are willing to accept. Baptism gives us God’s love in Christ. Christ becomes the deepest meaning of our lives. When we are willing to live fully in Christ we have discovered the fullness of who we are meant to be.
Study
We study how to join our lives to Christ. Spirituality is putting on the mind and the heart of Christ. We do not have to strain our minds to do that. Love is what Christ is all about in our lives. The image that expresses his love for me is Christ is a prisoner of my hearts. We are not only called to love one another as Christ has loved us. We are called to work at the scriptures and to pay attention to our heart’s coming alive to what we are reading and praying. Love of the least ones who come into our lives Christ takes as love for him. If I want to know how much I love Christ in my brother or sister, I need to see what I do for the least ones in my life. I deliberately try to love the least ones with all the love I have for the ones I most love in my life. If I could love with such a love, no one would know who it was that I most love. Our Gospel of the woman who washes the feet of Christ with her tears and dries them with her hair speaks a wonderful image to me and gives the challenge. My sinfulness does not have to keep me away from Christ. Rather my sinfulness should draw me even more closely to Christ. His love covers a multitude of sins if we would let it.
Action
The best actions will always be the ones that flow out of our hearts because we care for one another. The best resolution is to try to do something beautiful for each person that crosses our path. We need to do that with the love that comes from Christ’s cross. He can live on in us as we fill up what is wanting to the suffering of Christ’s body, his Church. The only way I can hold unto Christ’s love is to give it away. The only way I can save my life is to lose it for Christ. When I can say I no longer live, it is Christ who lives in me, I will have arrived at the summit of love. The paradox of love is the truth that I can only keep Christ in my heart by giving him away to every person who comes my way.
