Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church

Homily for October 27, 2002
Year A - Cycle II
30th Sunday in Ordinary Time 

by Fr. John Carney
Topic:  How Well Do You Love?
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Gospel Reading
Matthew 22: 34-40
When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them [a scholar of the law]  tested him by asking, "Teacher,  which commandment in the law is the greatest?"  He said to him, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and the first commandment.  The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments."
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That’s a beautiful Alleluia, Julie. It feels so good when you sing that Alleluia. What does Alleluia mean? I don’t think it has any meaning. I think it’s just a word of praise that is sung everywhere. It’s sung in China, in Russia, in this country, you know, everywhere. I think when we sing Alleluia, it’s the spirit of God in us singing to the Father, and that’s why it makes us feel so good, because it ain’t us. It’s just we’re being used as like an amplifier for God’s love.
Today’s gospel is round two with the Pharisees. Last week the Pharisees were trying to trick Jesus with the question about the census tax. They were trying to get him in trouble with either the civil authorities or the religious authorities; and this week their focus is on getting Jesus in hot water with the religious authorities. The question was which is the greatest commandment. This has been the question argued for hundreds of years by the Jews, and if Jesus were to come out with a definitive answer, he would surely aggravate someone. We know there are 10 commandments in the Decalogue, but in the Hebrew Scriptures, in the first five books there were 613 other commandments. They were all from God, so who is man to say what’s most important. Of course, Jesus once again defeats the Pharisees and says the great commandment is to love God with all you heart, mind, soul, and strength, that’s Deuteronomy 6, and to love your neighbor as yourself which is from Leviticus. And then he says in these two commandments all the commandments are based and the law and the prophets as well. He made it easy to understand, if not to do. Saint Luke actually had a slightly different version of this story. In St. Luke Jesus answers the question of which is the greatest commandment with the words, love god and your neighbor, so he unites them and makes them one.
I was struggling all week though with this gospel because it’s so simple to understand, you don’t need anyone to amplify it or to speak about it. So I went online and I looked at like 30 or 40 homilies, and I’ll tell you, there’s a lot of bored Christians out there this weekend. It’s terrible. I was exasperated, I said, " Ray, I’m going nuts here! I can’t come up with a thing." but no, I’m not going to sit down, forget it!
So, instead of preaching today, let me just give us a test. We’ll all just take a personal inventory of how well we love. What does love mean and who is our neighbor is the question. Love is an action. It’s a verb. It’s about doing stuff. Many of you have read Scott Peck’s The Road Less Traveled. He defines love as "The willingness to extend yourself for the benefit of another." I think that’s a pretty good definition. You could say that love is as love does. Again, like conscience we talked about last week, it’s not primarily a feeling, it involves feeling and emotion, but it’s primarily a decision, an act of the will.
So anyways, here’s the test. St. Paul tells us what love is, you know, 1 Corinthians 13. Many of you hear that at weddings all the time, you know, love is patient, love is kind, love is never rude, love is etc. Several years ago I took out these words and made a list and I put it in my breviary, and every couple of days I check and see how I’m doing. I’m not doing very well. But at least I know what I'm supposed to be doing if I am to love. And so let’s take St. Paul’s test here.
Love is patient. Are you patient? In traffic? See, see you were sitting there "Yeah, but no, no, no." Do you get annoyed when that person in front of you is 15 miles under the limit? How do you feel when you pass her and she’s 79 years old and doing the best she can? After the mass last night, some guy said, "She shouldn’t be driving at that age." You know I said to him, "You need to get a life, I’ll check with you when you’re 79." I said, "Let the old lady drive, let’s just have a little consideration for her. We’re all getting close to that age." Seventy-nine. Just a kid, right? Yeah, I know. How about in the grocery store, are you patient? You’re in a hussle, you’re running late, you pick up your few items, you go to the quick line, the 10 items or less, and you see someone with 11 or 12 or 15? Or how about the person in front of you who’s writing a check for $1.71? She opens the purse and she can’t find it. She finally gets this thing, puts it out there, finds her glasses, puts them on, and says, "What is today’s date?" Are you patient? You will be next time, right? You’ll go (tap, tap, tap) "I love you, I do and you take your time." Love is patient. Love is patient.
Love is Kind. Are you kind? You know, sometimes we need to correct each other, we need to complain, but there’s a kind way of doing that. You can be kind, have a heart. There’ s always one person who is driving you nuts. I said, "You I know it ain’t me. Before I came it was someone else, it’s your wife, your mother. You’re just nasty." I said, "You know I think if you had heart surgery they’d open you up and they’d find another brain." Do you have a heart? Be nice. That wasn’t very nice to say to him, but he listened.
Love is not jealous. When the other person gets the promotion at work, are you happy for him? If you’re not, then perhaps you’re jealous. Love doesn’t boast, doesn’t brag. Love is never rude. I have a friend, and he remains a friend, who was studying for the priesthood, when I was Vocations Director for the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. I wouldn’t accept him because he’s rude to waitresses. Every time, just about every time we go out to eat, something would happen and I would say, "Would you be nice?" He would say to the waitress, "Hey, I want that food hot! I want the plate heated too, and if it’s not hot, it’s going back!" That’s no way to talk to her. I mean, she’s probably back there spitting in your enchiladas. It’s not very bright either. I didn’t take him and he says, " Are you trying to tell me, John, you won’t take me because I’m rude to waitresses?" I said, "That’s right." Did I do the right thing? Thank you.
Love is never proud. Do you think you’re better than anyone else? God doesn’t. God loves you perfectly. But he loves another person just as perfectly. Love is never selfish. We had a reflection last week during one of the daily masses and I asked the question, "How much is enough? How much money do you need? How much money do I need?" Someone says there is this fellow at the Lab, and apparently a lot of people at the Lab talk about their retirement. They’re always thinking about when they retire. And then they retire and they don’t retire, they keep going to work anyway. Strange city this is, you know. Strange place up here. One guy had it figured out that if the Stock Market continues to tank, and the interest rates remain low, then he’s good until 135. And he knows he’s probably not going to live past 120. Have you ever seen a hearse pull a U-Haul trailer. Give your money away, to your kids, your grandkids, to the poor, to the church. How much is enough? Be generous. Oh, God loves a generous giver, and you’ll never out do God in generosity.
Listen to this one. Love does not, is not quick to take offense. Are you quick to take offense? Are you thin-skinned. Husbands and wives, you look straight ahead now. Don’t be looking. Are you thin-skinned. Maybe that person who you thought insulted you, maybe her mom died last week. Who knows. I think, I’m convinced the basis of being thin-skinned is pride. How dare they insult me?
Listen to this one, married couples, please listen to this; that love keeps no score of wrongs. God keeps no score of wrongs. I tell people in the confessional all the time that God not only forgives your sins, he forgets them. Your slate is wiped clean in Heaven. That’s his mercy. We’re not like that though, but we’re supposed to be because love keeps no score of wrongs. Love does not rejoice in what is wrong but delights in the truth. When your enemy stumbles are you happy? Now, first of all, having an enemy is OK. Christians are actually supposed to have enemies because if you do what Christ asks you to do and say what he asks you to say, someone’s not going to like you. But we’ve got to love our enemies, but we should not delight when they trip and fall.
How are you doing on this test here? You know, I really would ask you to consider going to 1 Corinthians 13 and writing these down and putting them on your refrigerator and then looking at them every day. Love is patient, it is kind, not rude, doesn’t brood over injuries, it rejoices with the truth, all these things. It doesn’t take offense.
Who is my neighbor. Cardinal O’Connor, may he rest in peace, the Cardinal Archbishop of New York, wrote this when he first met Mother Teresa. He wrote, "She looked at me, she looked at the person on the street that she had to pass before she came to see me, she looked at the beggar in Calcutta, she looked at the poorest leper, in exactly the same way, as a person made in the image and likeness of God, sacred to God." That’s our neighbor. The child in the womb and the elderly person in a nursing home, black, brown, red, yellow, white, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Atheist, the judge and the convicted criminal, sacred to God. The rich and the poor. All are sacred in God’s eyes and all should be sacred in our eyes.
Remember I mentioned Scott Peck’s definition of love, "the willingness to extend oneself for the benefit of another." Look at that crucifix on the wall, the willingness to extend himself for our benefit is the definition of love, perfect love, and what he did he calls us to do as well.
I want to finish by reading a poem. Sometimes I read this in funerals when someone very good dies, and I hope that we can read this at your funeral, and I hope you can read this at mine. It’s called Learning Christ. Teach me, My Lord, to be kind and generous in all the events of life; in disappointment, in the thoughtlessness of others, in the insincerity of those I trusted, in the unfaithfulness of those on whom I rely. Let me put myself aside to think of the happiness of others, to hide my little pains and heartaches so that I may be the only one to suffer from them. Teach me to profit by the suffering that comes my way. Let me so use it so that it may mellow, not harden or embitter me, that it may make me patient not irritable, that it may make me broad in my forgiveness, not narrow, haughty, and overbearing. May no one be less good for having come to know me, no one less pure, less true, less kind, less noble, for having been a fellow traveler in our journey together to Heaven. And as I go my rounds from one distraction to another in this life, let me whisper from time to time words of love for thee My God. May my life be lived in the supernatural; full of power for good and strong in its purpose of sanctity.
Through Christ our lord.