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It’s been a
long, difficult, and sad year for many people I know. Here are just two
examples:
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A
short time back, a Kennedy-Kenrick High School student was killed in a
tragic car accident. While his mom and dad have each other to hold onto
and embrace in their grief, I can only imagine what it must be like for
them to walk past their son’s bedroom every night knowing that the room
is empty and their son will never be returning home.
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This
past week, a husband buried his wife of more than fifty years. It
was exactly one year ago they both told me after the 10:30 mass that she
had been diagnosed with cancer on the previous Friday. They asked
me to pray for her. This good man is now left not only coping with his
grief having just lost “the love of his life,” but also living in a home
filled with memories but now feels “so empty.”
I’m sure you can
add to this list the names of many people you know who have experienced
the type of long, difficult, and sad year that Queen Elizabeth II once
dubbed an “annus horibilis.”
For these and so
many other people, the days are filled with tears. Perhaps some of
us seated here today are among those people. When we have to confront such difficult days, it’s extremely hard to find any
consolation in St. John’s description in today’s second reading of a
“new creation.” Instead, it’s more likely that people who are suffering
wonder why God has absconded, leaving His people alone in their
anguish. But, St. John wrote: “…God will wipe every tear from their
eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, for
the old order has passed away.”
This “new order”
St. John writes about isn’t something like new clothes, a new car, or a
new home. It isn’t like a new day, a new month, or a new year when
we’ve firmly locked the past into the past and we can get on with our
lives not being troubled by what we’ve secured in the past. No, this
“new order” St. John writes about is more akin to what our young people
call “extreme.” But, it’s not extreme adventure racing, bmx
biking, freestyle skateboarding, kite surfing, paragliding,
wakeboarding, snowboarding, or motocross. No, this particular “extreme”
is “radically extreme,” namely, to love other people as God loves them. This is how people
whose days are filled with tears experience the “new order” about which
St. John writes.
When we hear of
this extreme type of love, we think about how extraordinarily good
people like St. Gianna Molla, Blessed Mother Teresa, St. Maximilian
Kolbe, and the late-Pope John Paul II embodied “extreme” love.
Contemplating their example, our efforts to love others likely pale by
comparison. We might even conclude that it is impossible ever to possess
this type of extreme love for others. But, each and every one
of us can, St. John says, if we allow God to make all things new...with
us.
Consider the
difference between these two stories:
The first story.
A mother is
preparing pancakes for her two sons, Kevin who is 5 years old, and Ryan
who is 3 years old. The boys begin to argue over who’s going to get the
first pancake.
Ever been there?
Done that?
Well, the boys’
mother saw the opportunity to teach Kevin and Ryan a moral lesson. So,
she said: “If Jesus was sitting here, he would say, ‘Let my brother have
the first pancake, I can wait.’ ”
Upon hearing this
moral lesson, Kevin immediately turned to his younger brother and said,
“Ryan, you be Jesus!”
It’s so easy to
expect and even to demand that everyone else be Jesus, isn’t it?
Now, the second
story.
An eight-year-old
boy’s younger sister was lying in a hospital room. She was dying of the same
blood disease which her older brother had recovered from when he was
about her
age.
During a visit to
his little sister in the hospital, the doctor called the young boy out
into the corridor and said, “Only a transfusion of your blood will save
your sister’s life.” Then the doctor asked the young boy, “Are you
willing to give her your blood?”
His eyes widened,
full of fear. The young boy hemmed and hawed for a bit, but finally
said, “OK, doctor, I’ll do it.”
An hour following
the transfusion, the doctor came by and the boy asked him hesitantly,
“When do I die?”
It was only then
that the doctor understood the momentary fear that earlier had seized
the young boy. He thought that by giving his blood for the transfusion,
he was giving his life for his sister.
It’s not so easy to
sacrifice ourselves even for those we love, is it?
“Love one
another,” Jesus said to his disciples, “Such as my love has been for
you, so must your love be for each other.
The problem is
that
“extreme” love doesn’t just happen. It begins with the “small things.”
With the grass
and weeds beginning to grow, mowing an elderly neighbor’s yard or
weeding their flower beds without asking to be paid demonstrates the
beginning of extreme love. So, too, does babysitting a neighbor’s
infant so that the infant’s mother can go to the store or just take a
few hours to re-charge herself by getting some fresh air. Likewise,
performing the chores around the home without griping or complaining
demonstrates the first stirrings of extreme love. Although these are
small, even simple actions, they demonstrate the type of concern for
others that Jesus talked about in today’s gospel. These aren’t those
“flashy” actions that capture all of the attention. Yet, what these
actions do accomplish is extreme. They teach us that sacrifice isn’t
something awful and bad for us, but that sacrifice is the way we grow in
holiness.
Jesus’ call to
love is not a call for his disciples simply to have nice thoughts or to say
nice things, but for them to sacrifice themselves by engaging directly in actions
demonstrating extreme love. When we love our
neighbor as we love ourselves—and that neighbor could include just about
anyone, including our enemies—we do those good things that make it
possible for our love to become increasingly more extreme.
Sacrificing for
the sake of others reveals God’s love for the world. Just think
of the many people you know who have experienced a long, difficult, and
sad annus horibilis. Extreme love becomes evident as we
sacrifice for them, the sacrifice—when it is united with the bread and
wine we offer on the altar to God, the almighty Father—that becomes the body and
blood of Christ at work in our world. Nourished by this sacred
banquet, we feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the
naked, give welcome to strangers, visit the sick and imprisoned, and
bury the dead. This is how God’s extreme love for His children is
made incarnate.
The Catechism of
the Catholic Church speaks about the “corporal” aspects of making
God’s extreme love incarnate in this way:
The works of mercy are
charitable actions by which we come to the aid of our neighbor in his
bodily and spiritual necessities. Instructing, advising,
consoling, comforting, are spiritual works of mercy, as are forgiving
and bearing wrongs patiently. The corporal works of mercy consist
especially in feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the
naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned, and burying the dead.
Among all of these, giving alms to the poor is one of the chief
witnesses to fraternal charity: it is also a work of justice pleasing to
God:
“He who has two coats,
let him share with him who has none and he who has food must do
likewise. But give for alms those things which are within; and
behold, everything is clean for you. If a brother or sister is
ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and only says to them, ‘Go in peace,
be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the
body, what does it profit?” (James 2:15-16; 1 John 3:17)
So, this day,
let’s pray my sisters and brothers, as we soon will pray during the
Offertory, that our sacrifice—our acts of
extreme love where we make the love of God incarnate in the lives of
other people as Jesus did for us—may be made acceptable to God, our almighty Father.
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HOMILY
