I don’t think
there’s ever been a time when I’ve gone through the checkout line at Wegmans
and I’ve glanced at the tabloids that I didn’t see in bold print some headline
about this or that celebrity whose love is on the rocks or who are filing for
divorce. Indeed, when you hear about
Hollywood marriages that last a long time, like Charleston Heston and Lydia
Clarke who were married for 65 years, you open your eyes and are quite
surprised, even astonished, because it’s so out of the ordinary. When these Hollywood marriages split, you
usually hear explanations like
“We just fell
out of love”
“The Romance was
gone”
Or
“I just didn’t
feel in love anymore”
I remember growing up thinking of
love in terms of feeling. I felt love
for my dad and my mom. And sometimes for my brothers and sister. I felt a feeling I thought was love at my
first crush. I met my wife and we became
good friends, and eventually I “felt” in love with her, and can still remember
the car ride in the mountains of North Carolina when I told her that for the
first time.
But I’m not sure I can tell you when
I’ve ever felt love for God in the same way. Or “felt” love for neighbor like that
either. Sure, I’ve always felt a measure
of devotion to the Lord, and I’ve always felt a sense of responsibility for my
neighbor, but did I feel love?
I’m not so sure. Certainly not
the same way I feel love for my wife and kids.
This is important because today’s
Gospel speaks of the two greatest commandments.
Not suggestions, mind you, but commandments! Jesus quotes the Hebrew scriptures, indeed He
quotes from Deuteronomy, our first reading, saying “Hear O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone!
Therefore you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your
soul, and with all your strength.” He
commands us to love God! That
always troubled me a bit, for what if I didn’t feel love for God? And for most of my life, I can honestly
confess I haven’t really felt love for God?
Well it comes down, I think, to how
you define love. Our culture, our
society, and even our upbringing, tend to define love in terms of a
feeling. But I think that misses the
mark. As we know, feelings come and
feelings go. The love we’re speaking of
in the Gospel, and in Deuteronomy, is more than a feeling – it’s a decision. The love Christ commands of us is not a
feeling, its’ a decision. An act of the
will. It’s done as much with the brain
as with the heart. It’s deciding to
order our lives such that God comes first.
It means persisting in our daily prayer, even when we might not feel
like it. Even when God may feel far
away. Even when life has caused us pain
and we might be angry with God.
This love calls us to obey His
commandments and those of His Church, even when we might not want to, even when
it may be difficult, even when nobody else does. And it means that when we’ve sinned, when
we’ve betrayed our love of God, this love Jesus commands of us means that we
pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and beg the Lord for mercy, and the best
place for that Is the confessional!
There’s another word for this kind
of love – and the word is faith. For the
faith that is asked of us is more than words.
It’s more than our making a profession weekly about what we
believe. It’s about how we prioritize
our lives, about how we live our lives, about the place of Our Blessed Lord in
our lives.
But love of God is not the only love
Jesus commands of us today. He quotes
the Hebrew scripture Leviticus when he says that we must love our neighbor as
ourselves. And this is the same sort of
love – an act of will, a decision. In
fact, it logically follows from our decision to love God that we will want to
make decisions to love our neighbor. When
our faith is alive and on fire, when we realize just how much God loves us, we
cannot help but to love our neighbor.
Whether or not we feel any love for them, we cannot help but to love
them, cannot help but to serve them.
Theresa is a great example of what
I’m talking about here. This wonderful
book, Come Be My Light, reveals over 30 years of Theresa’s private writings and
it offers a keen insight into this amazing woman’s mind and soul. She reveals that for much of her adult life,
she experienced feelings of darkness, of dryness, of distance from God. She would pray, participate in liturgy and
receive the Eucharist every day, yet for most of those days she felt
nothing at all. She even wondered if God
was dead, she felt so far away. Yet she
persevered. She got up every day and
continued on her mission to serve the poorest of the poor, opening missions in
over 100 countries. Despite feeling
nothing at all, she continued to love God and neighbor, and her Missionaries of
Charity are now active in 133 countries.
We can do the same. Indeed we are called to do the same,
commanded to do the same. Oh maybe not
do the heroic works that Mother Theresa did, but to get up every day, pray,
participate in Eucharist if we are able, and persevere in an active love of God
and neighbor. Not so that we may
receive any reward, not so that we may receive any glory, but only so that by our
lives and by our love we may glorify the Father of Jesus Christ who is Our Lord
forever and ever. Amen.
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