May 22, 2022 (Sixth Sunday of Easter)
/by Fr. Xavier Lavagetto, O.P.
[This is the text composed by the homilist prior to delivering the homily.]
There is in us an abiding hunger for love. Robert Frost (1874 - 1963) put it well; “Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.” … Would you love to be irresistibly desired? … God does, but it takes us a lifetime to realize that God loves us that much.
St. John write: God is love, and those who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. (I John 4:16) … Love is God’s very being. He is neither static nor distant, but dynamic and near. He is a communion of love, Father, Son and Spirit. But there is this difference; unlike us, there is no need in God, but an abundance and enthusiasm that overflows into creating a universe, or maybe, it’s a multiverse. He is a briming tenderness inviting us in love’s dance. … The reason is simple; love loves to love. (Josef Pieper).
God makes room for relationship and does the unthinkable; he makes himself vulnerable to your love! Without freedom, this is no love, for love is a free gifting of self. You can say “no”; you can say a most wondrous “yes.”
Pope Francis asked for that “yes”; he said, Ask what Jesus wants of you and be brave. Take up the adventure of Jesus. Sadly, there is a FOMO, a fear of missing out that makes us timid. We want to keep our options open, not realizing that path leads to no options. It is when we risk, choose and commit that new doors open. Ask what Jesus wants of you and be brave!
I saw the fruit of such bravery at the funeral of a Religious of the Sacred Heart. She was just 2 years shy of being 100, 2 years shy of her 75th anniversary of religious profession. Imagine how much she saw! … Growing up during the depression, she saw a world at war, the horror of holocaust, war upon war, the world split in two with an Iron Curtain, the Civil Rights movement and more. She lived the revolution of Vatican II, and the redefinition of holiness as compassionate relationship instead of frigid perfection.
Her eulogy had a surprising line. Raised in a happy, loving home with 6 siblings, “she was steeped in the strong principles and faith of her parents. Her father was rigid and controlling disciplinarian, who indoctrinated her to excel and be strong — a focus she spent many years working to undo.” … What was that? A focus she spent many years working to undo? That got my attention and a guffaw of her many family members. There is a story there.
We can be too caught up into ourselves: Do I measure up? Am I good enough? Do they like me? We leave little space to be caught up into the expansive, exuberant embrace of God. Holiness is wholeness, not faultlessness. We are to become more human, more ourselves, not less. You are made in God’s image and likeness.
I quizzed the congregation: What did you love most about her? …Her smile, her humor, her kindness, her learning, her love, her serving; her life left a wake of goodness! … Shouldn’t ours? … She wanted real relationships with God and others, not the rigidity of preconciliar religious life. She wanted to be a Jesus loving, embracing person.
Jesus said: Peace I leave you, my peace I give you! … Peace is not the absence of struggle and conflict; it is confidence born of feeling radically loved by a radically loving God. Our destiny is not some Disneyland; the only homeland that will satisfy our insatiable hearts is the insatiable Trinity itself. She chose these words from St. John of the Cross for her funeral card: It is toward Love that I am walking as I go away; it is in His love that I hold out my arms.
But we are tempted to be like the Hellenists in our first reading who said you had to be circumcised to be a Christian. … We want control, not trust. Do this; do that, manage God, merit salvation! ... Instead, Jesus said: Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.
Just what is Jesus’ word that we are to keep? … A rewritten Law? … The opening of John’s Gospel says otherwise: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. … The Word is the self-expression of the Father and the Spirit wants to breathe that divine Word into you that says: You are loved. Be my love! As St. Paul, It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. (Gal 2:20)
It’s time to give up what our culture teaches us about Christ’s sacrifice; it is not about killing to assuage a wrathful God, pay some penalty, or buy forgiveness with the coin of suffering and death. Christ dies not to persuade God but to persuade you and then pour his life into you. It is no accident that the Hebrew word for sacrifice, korban, means “to draw near.” Will you let God draw near to you by drawing near to him and each other? It is all about giving oneself as love’s gift.
Don’t misunderstand me; love often brings suffering. Some sacrifice their lives in love, but it is not the suffering and death that transforms but the love behind it, the love and life poured into our death that makes us come alive. Say yes to his loving you!
The results are marvelous. Jesus told us: “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.” Those last words were shocking for first-century Jews and Jewish-Christian. God’s dwelling was in the Holy of Holies in the Temple. Once a year the High Priest entered in a protecting cloud of incense. To get too near was dangerous! It is like coming to near a raging fire.
God in Jesus turns everything upside down. God draws near! God makes those who love him into a new Holies of Holies. We now call the one whose name must not be mentioned, Abba, Father. At every Mass, Jesus puts himself into your hands to become your flesh, your blood, your very heartbeat.
You are being built even now into the new, heavenly Jerusalem of our second reading that “has the glory of God”. That reality begins now, in the seed that God plants in you, in the Spirit Jesus breathes into you.
It sounds glorious, but only real love makes us Temples, only real love risks. God wants more than a new orthodoxy; he yearns for a new orthopraxis. Orthodoxy without orthopraxis, right belief without right action is all very dead.
Paul makes the point dramatically: if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. Love is only as real as love’s doing! Embrace love’s disciplines as Paul wrote: “Love is patient, … kind. … not jealous, … not pompous, … not inflated, it is not rude, … does not seek its own interests, … not quick-tempered, … does not brood over injury, …” It’s all a school of learning to be a gift of love!
But hurts and habits make us timid. No wonder Jesus says: Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. ... Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.
Be practical: ask yourself what fears rule your lives and control your actions, and then ask Jesus: Lord help me live your love, remembering his irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired by you!
To those being confirmed: Let that Spirit in to guide you. And remember Pope’s Francis’ call: Ask what Jesus wants of you and be brave
