2nd Sunday of Lent 2016
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA
You
have heard it said – by pastors, preachers, confessors, teachers,
the Pope, and even your mama – you have heard it said that God
loves you. And indeed He does. He can do nothing else for He is
Love. Our heavenly Father is not a being that loves us most of the
time, or on occasion, or only when we deserve it. Love is Who He is
and What He does – eternally, without conditions, and for a single
all-encompassing purpose: to change those who will receive His
love into a holy people. The question – does God love me? –
should never cross your mind. Why? Do the logic: God is Love. You
live and move and have your being in God. Only existing creatures are
capable of asking questions. “Does God love me?” is a question,
therefore you exist. Therefore, God loves you. To put that a bit more
succinctly: that you (an existing creature) can ask the question at
all means that God loves you. So, please retire the question of
whether or not God loves us. If He didn't, He would not exist and
neither would any of us. There is a question about God and love that
we must ask, and ask daily: do I love God? If so, what purpose
does my love for God serve? On Mt. Tabor – in the presence of
Peter, James, and John – the transfigured Christ gives us the
answer. We love God for the same reason He loves us: so that we
may be made holy.
Since
we've retired the question of whether or not God loves us (He does
and can do nothing less), and we already know why He loves us (so
that we may be made holy), and we've answered the question about why
we love God in turn (so that we may help God make us holy), let's ask
a more practical question: how do we help God make us holy?
That is, what do we do/think/say/feel on a day to day basis that
assists God's love for us so that we are actually growing in
holiness? Loving God, yourself, your family and friends, your
neighbors, and even loving your enemies is easy in the abstract. It's
easy to sit back and radiate an aura of loving care; it's easy to
say, “I love my neighbors and all my enemies;” it's easy to think
sweet thoughts about the poor, the persecuted, and the sick. It is
far more difficult to get out there and perform loving acts; to
perform forgiveness; to show mercy; to treat everyone you meet – at
church, at the bank, at the office, in traffic – to treat everyone
you meet as another soul deeply in love with God and eternally loved
by God. This is why the Church has always bound faith and works
together: our loving works demonstrate our trust in God and our trust
in God is made real in our loving works. When we fail to love, we
confess these failures as sins in thought, word, and deed. So, how do
we help God make us holy? Well, first, we understand that
loving God and those He loves is not simply an abstract, intellectual
exercise; next, we understand that love is a behavior – like
driving or walking or getting dressed. To love is to see, hear, think
about, and treat yourself and everyone else the way God Himself
treats us all. With kindness, compassion, dignity, patience, and
forgiveness. Do this and you grow in holiness. You become more like
Christ. You are transfigured.
Becoming
more like Christ is we have vowed to do. But we need to hear this:
loving God, self, and everyone else – becoming more like Christ –
is dangerous. Dangerous how? Besides Jesus' promises of persecution,
trial, and death for those who follow him, we can point to the forty
days he spent in the desert being tempted by Satan. We too are
tempted to play the Devil's Games with sin and death. The Devil
always takes God's gifts and tweaks them ever-so-slightly and then
presents them to us infected with his poison. God's love and His
command to us to love is no different. With God's love and His
command to love comes His truth and His command to obey the truth.
Love and truth cannot be separated. When we love intensely, we
dwell intensely in the truth. And when we tell the Truth we always
express love. The Devil plays on our desire to love by pointing out
all the ways we appear to fail at love. He accuses the Church of not
loving women b/c we truthfully name artificial contraception,
abortion, and sterilization evil. He accuses us of hatred b/c
we truthfully call sex outside of a sacramental marriage evil.
He accuses us of not loving orphans b/c we cannot place them in homes
with two fathers or two mothers. He accuses us of not loving
non-Christians b/c we truthfully teach that Christ is the only name
under heaven through which all are saved. What Satan is tempting us
to do, want us to do, is sever truth from love and love without
truth. This we cannot do b/c our Christ is the way, the truth,
and the life. We follow him so that we may be transfigured, made holy
in love and truth.
Satan
and the world he rules teaches that “Love” is to be practiced
without Truth. Love w/o truth is nothing more than poor-mouthed
tolerance or indifference, an emotion that feels good to emote but
ultimately leaves those who live it living a lie. Godly love is
always true. Never a lie. True love is always gives the glory to God.
Never to man. Love always carries us to goodness; never to evil. Love
always binds us in obedience; it never frees us to be disobedient.
Godly love always heals, always cleans, sometimes hurts,
sometimes cuts away. Love never winks at sin, shrugs at injustice, or
ignores the poor. Love always looks to Christ, his church, and his
Mother. Love never uses the bottom-line, the convenient, the
practical, or the efficient to destroy God’s creatures, especially
His unborn children. Love always encourages spiritual growth from
faithful experience. Love never gives license to novelty for
novelty’s sake nor does love trust innovation for the sake of
excitement. Love can be a terrible whirlwind, a bone-shattering blow,
a heart-ripping loss. But love always builds up in perfection, grows
in wisdom and kindness; love attracts questions about eternal things,
and discourages attachment to impermanent things. The love that Satan
and the world he rules wants to settle for is a passion for
indifference, permissiveness, choice w/o consequence, and,
ultimately, death.
Will
you be made holy? Let's ask that differently: do you will to be
made holy? If you will to become a well-oiled, surgical tool for
God’s Word, you will love as He loves you. You will speak the truth
and only the truth; you will spread goodness and only goodness; you
will honor beauty and only beauty; you will correct error, confront
sin, expose lies, forgive all offenses; and you will build up his
Body with works of mercy and open the doors of your faith to the
stranger. And you will remember – if you will to be made holy –
that you are not alone. God is with us, and who can stand against
Him?
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