"Let us begin."

St. Joseph Church (Cottleville)
30th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A
October 26, 2008 - 12:15 p.m.

Ex 22:20-26
Ps 18
1 Thes 1:5c-10
Mt 22:34-40

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to talk to the youth group about some of my experiences of working with the Missionaries of Charity when I studied in Washington, D.C. As you probably know, they are the religious sisters who were founded by Mother Teresa. I was constantly amazed at what I saw in these sisters. They had quite literally given up everything to embrace their call to consecrated life. Not even the clothes they wore – their habit – really belonged to them. What is most amazing about these sisters, what draws the world’s attention to them, is the reason why they have given up everything they have given up. It is to serve those who are terribly poor and sick. The home where I worked in Washington was for homeless men and women who had terminal diseases. The sisters’ job was to care for them until their death. I never had the opportunity to meet Mother Teresa, but I felt like I was with her every time I went to volunteer with her sisters. It was clear that her spirit was living on in them.

The sisters were clearly living out our Lord’s command in today’s Gospel: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” They had a secret, though, a secret that is often missed in popular accounts of Mother Teresa. A lot of people in our world admired Mother Teresa for the incredibly difficult work that she did – and rightfully so! She got her hands dirty with some of the poorest and sickest people in our world. But what the world often has failed to realize is why Mother Teresa did what she did. She wasn’t just a social worker. She did it because she understood so well the first part of our Lord’s words in today’s Gospel: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” Did you know that Mother Teresa spent a minimum of two hours a day on her knees before the Blessed Sacrament? And that was apart from Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours. And I learned when I volunteered with her sisters, that their prayer continued throughout the day. I remember doing laundry with them – in a sink, by hand, mind you – and instead of simply chatting while we did it, we prayed the Rosary. Mother Teresa was so heroic – and her sisters now are so heroic – because they understood well that these two commandments given to us by Christ, the commandments upon which the whole law and the prophets depend, are intimately related to one another.

How exactly does this inter-relation play out? What linked Mother Teresa’s adoration of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament to her loving care for the poor? I’ll let her tell you herself. She once said, “Christ is hidden under the suffering appearance of anyone who is hungry, naked, homeless, or dying. . . . There is but one love of Jesus, as there is but one person in the poor – Jesus.” Whether she was kneeling in prayer or binding the wounds of a leper, Mother Teresa was loving Christ. She saw in every person she met the image of God, for that is how each of us has been created. Every single human being on the face of the earth bears the image and likeness of God Himself. Mother Teresa didn’t miss it, because she knew the Lord so well. She became so familiar with Jesus in prayer, that she recognized Him immediately when she saw Him in someone in need. This is the fullness of love that each one of us is called to. We’re called to love God above all else. And in loving our neighbor, it is actually nothing more than an expression of the love of God, whose image each of our neighbors bear. These two commandments are linked because they are calling us to one and the same love.

What does it mean, then, for us to love our neighbor? A simple way would be to donate money to charities that help the poor and suffering. This is a good thing, a noble thing, but I don’t think this is exactly what our Lord was talking about with the Pharisees in today’s Gospel. Love isn’t just a generic gift to a group of people I don’t know. Love is particular. It is called for at particular moments in our day. We’re called to love people in our own home – fathers, mothers, spouses, brothers, sisters – people whose faults we are all too familiar with. We’re called to love that coworker or classmate who annoys us, whose idiosyncrasies drive us up the wall. We’re called to love the person who cuts us off in traffic. It is in these particular moments that this commandment to love our neighbor comes into play. In these moments, we must make a choice, for that ultimately is what love is. It’s not a feeling, but a choice – the choice to desire what is best for the other. To say, I know that God’s image is in you, even if I don’t see it now, even if you aren’t acting like it, and so I will love you. I will let go of my own desires, my own wants, and I will desire what is good for you.

We come here Sunday after Sunday because we know that here, from these Scriptures and from this holy altar, we receive what truly satisfies. We encounter One whose love for each one of us was so great, that He allowed His hands and feet to be nailed to a tree – out of love for us. Spiritual writers reflect upon this central mystery of our faith, and they tell us that our Lord’s love on the cross is for all people. He went to Calvary out of love for people of every time and place. But His love wasn’t for a generic crowd of people. It was for particular men, women, and children. If you were the only person who existed on the face of the earth, even then Jesus Christ would have taken the thorns, the nails, and the spear, just for you. As He hung on the cross, pouring forth His life, He thought of you, and He thought of me. That is love. Here, in this place, we receive Love Himself, and so we are equipped to love others.

In the end, love is the greatest gift Christianity has to offer the world. We can whine and complain to no end about the state of our society, about people who are hostile to God and to His Church, about how hard it is in our society to live out our faith. It’s important that we be realistic about the struggles we are up against in the world, but ultimately, whining and complaining gets us nowhere. If we Christians actually lived as Christians at every moment of the day, if, in every encounter of the day, we saw the image of God in our neighbor, if everyone who claims to be a follower of Christ conducted themselves constantly like the Lord, I think we would see amazing things start to happen. Love alone has the power to convert hearts. Love alone can convert a culture of death into a culture of life.

Just one more thought from Mother Teresa: “There is a terrible hunger for love. We all experience that in our lives - the pain, the loneliness. We must have the courage to recognize it. The poor you may have right in your own family. Find them. Love them. . . . Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”