For the sake of our visitors, my way of marking the Jubilee Year of the Apostle Paul is to focus my preaching on each Sunday’s epistle reading. Today we are in Chapter 13, verses 8 to 10, of Romans, which means the lectionary skipped over most of Chapter 12, and part of Chapter 13, missing Paul’s application of the Gospel to the way we make our ethical decisions. Chapters 12 and 13 would make a powerful examination of conscience for the next time you go to confession. It deals with the way we use our bodies, our responsibility to the whole body that is the Church, our level of sincerity, the quality of our zeal, our ability to endure in the face of affliction, our humility, our living in peace, our letting go of revenge, our conquering evil with good, and our attitude towards people in authority.
That brings us to today’s passage about love as the fulfillment of the law. Here Paul is wrapping up his treatment of ethical issues by saying that all the commandments are summed up in love which “does no evil to the neighbor.”
The quality of my loving was the main issue in my 8 day retreat this summer; and I’d like to share the fruit of those retreat meditations on love.
It is surprising how love can be diminished in our hearts by a series of difficult events. In other words times of affliction can be interpreted by us either as invitations to grow, or as yet more obstacles that cheat us of our joy. That sense of being cheated is what the Lord took me to task for. It had become clear to me about a year ago that cynicism had robbed me of my joy. Cynicism is that negative outlook that sees yet more of the same coming down the road, more disappointment, more frustration, and more things to complain about. It’s an attitude that comes from judging others.
Long before my retreat, I had begun confessing this sin of cynicism so that by the time of the retreat I had already sensed that the Lord had taken this attitude away from me. The telltale sign of this deliverance was the sustained sense of joy I was experiencing.
Then, during my 8 days of silence on retreat I was given some mystical experiences that I can best describe as conversations with the Lord. So, here’s a feeble attempt to describe what went on in my meditations on love being the fulfillment of the law. It went this way, as if I heard the Lord say the following to me:
“The way I want to reach the people of Boulder is by your loving them – your parishioners and whoever comes by. Not by giving money to the beggars, but by giving them the opportunity to be set right with me by Confession. Silver and gold are not yours to give, but the sacraments are. Give Boulder your love, if you do indeed love Me. In place of judgment, give them love. In place of low expectations, give them love. So fill that empty spot that was once occupied by cynicism with sheer, unadulterated love.
“Do not forget that it is I who put you in charge of SHJ and your work is to be on guard and watch – especially that My love is to come through SHJ to Boulder, to a town that has grown tired of Me and the Gospel though they have never known either – but your parish has! So, you are in charge with words and a wisdom given by the Spirit to help your parish be a witness to My love.”
I am, therefore, happy to remind us that this focus on love is indeed what we are called to - by the very merit of our parish name: the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Our parish received this name back in 1875; and in 1900 the people of this parish embraced the ideal of giving this love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to children by establishing our parish school.
Today I would like to introduce to you our interim school principal, Pam Jackimiec, who will speak about how we can let this love of Christ flow more freely between our school and our parish communities.
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