30th Sunday Homily Love of God=Love of Neighbor


When we speak of Jesus and his revelation of God; there may be a temptation to think that what Jesus had to reveal of the Father was truly innovative, new, progressive. He proclaimed God that has never been hear before.  In part yes, but...

Jesus was also firmly rooted in the history of his people and rooted in their Scripture. What Jesus revealed of the Father was the fullness of that Revelation that the Father had begun with the people of Israel.  

To paraphrase: to be ignorant of Scripture is to be ignorant of God.

God revealed God’s self to humanity; Israel in Scripture understands God as one who loves the people and wants the people to know this and to respond to this love through their love of others. These are in the foundational stories of Genesis: Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel.  It was inscribed in the law given to the people as we heard in Exodus.  Through word and deed, Israel was to show to the rest of the Nations God!

The Pharisees, and the Sadducees, the scholars of the law and Scriptures, were to know this and to share this with the people. Some clearly did not.

The fullness of life comes from our understanding of Christ and our open-heartedness to the love of God and love of Neighbor.  Jesus too reveals just that this love means. 

Jesus speaks of love as the conscious choice to believe in the goodness of the others.  
Love of God sees how God created goodness, harmony, in the world.
Love of God sees the connection between all that exists in the world.
Love of God sees how God created all with goodness.
Love of God sees that same goodness in all people and within ourselves.

Jesus understands that Goodness; God working through Israel to make that real in the world.  Jesus saw that goodness in the people around him, especially those the rest of society tended to dismiss; the sick, the so-called sinner, the poor; the outcast.  His miracles, his forgiveness made real the Father’s love for them.

A life well-lived contemplates the goodness of God in our personal lives. We open ourselves to those almost daily moments in which God works to bring out goodness.  A life well-lived also sees how goodness is present in others.

When a couple come in for marriage they inevitably are in love with each other. They have that emotional response to love, to seeing goodness within the other. They commit themselves to journey with each other to bring out and live that goodness.


We as a parish, we celebrate sacraments which express that inherent goodness and growing goodness in people. We commit ourselves to walking with people to help them bring out their goodness. Our mission is just that; spreading the good news and walking with people to understand that goodness.

Lets face it, there is real joy being with people to get this. Joy walking with people who learn to see that their goodness is inherent, and not dependent upon any stupid superficial judgements made by a world.

Joy that comes with seeing our children accomplish wonderful things.  Joy of growing old with a spouse.  Joy of surrounding one another in times of loss.

There is real Joy calling for the dignity of all people!  There is real Joy standing up against the sins of racism, sexism; the sins of violence against the unborn and the sick and aged.

The angry bitter people in this world focus in on themselves; they will not see the goodness in others, or around them. How is that a life well lived? As Jesus will also reveal, these are the people that want to kill the Good News.

We as Catholics, we have such tremendous gifts; given to us to instill that awareness of the divine love; A history of saints; spiritualities; corporal works of mercy; liturgy, and as mentioned sacraments.   

We must use them to find experience that love of God;  We must use them to love our neighbor.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

19th Sunday. With just a little faith...

Image
Parents, you are amazing. Each day you wake up and walk into the chaos of life with those special little somethings. Each day you walk into life and make choices, with little preparation, with those kids that are inherently bipolar: angels in one moment, in another, even Satan would be scared of them. Again, there is little prep; there is no easy app for parenting. I will repeat again, I do not mind noisy kids in mass; noisy adults I do, you all know better, but kids…please bring them and have them here. Parents thank you for bringing them and for having the courage and faith to be parents. Recently a friend asked me about depression. He asked me to describe what it is like. I could only give my experience: it is like a fog. It is being so overwhelmed by everything and feeling everything, and lacking the ability to take a step forward, to make a choice. There is no movement, only stagnation. It takes a lot of energy to be able to make a choice, to take a step. Earlier this week I w
Read more

22nd Sunday Following the Messiah

Image
My first car was a 1977 chevy nova, v-6, two doors; under the hood there was so much space. I got it the summer before my sophomore year in college, so I was 18-19. I wanted to change the oil so my dad told me how to do it. He said when I change the filter, hand tighten first, then give a small turn with the wrench, do not overtighten it. Me, being a college man, and knowing everything, gave it a good strong turn and thought well done. Several months later, it was time to change the filter again. I could not get it off. I tried and tried. My dad noticed and came to help. He told me that I had cranked it hard the last time didn’t I. Yup, with a degree of shame. He worked to get that thing off. My Uncle who lived nearby saw the commotion, He came and helped. It took them a long time, and what they did was eventually pound through the tire jack, and twisted it off that way. I learned my lesson; I felt a lot of shame on that one. Being able to hold in tension or conflicting ideals signifie
Read more

2nd Advent - Finding our way in God's Love

Image
Many years ago a friend living in Texas came up to visit me in Fernley. This friend had been born and raised in the city. Anyway, I had asked him what he would like to do and he wanted to go geocaching. Okay, I thought it is March in Northern Nevada, fun! But we went, found a cache located near Lahontan Reservoir, and so we drove out there. I parked the car near the cache and the gps device told us the cache was about 500 feet away. I looked around and had a sense of where it would be, on this hillside. My friend became worried: worried that we would get lost. I said not a problem. What if we lose sight of the car? I looked around, it was Nevada sage, no tree for miles; and again we were only going 500 feet up a hill. I said we will be fine, we will never lose sight of the car and we won’t get lost. We didn’t. I have been lost in the wilderness once. It was scary. I was in Northern New Mexico, in a thick forest and it was an overcast day. I was by myself, and nobody knew where I was, a
Read more