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The Bride or the Beer? A Meditation on Our Deepest Love As Seen in a Beer Commercial

Over the last twenty years I have come to deeply love the Wisdom of God. I love to study God’s Word, I love Catholic teaching, and I am thrilled to teach it. Right now I am both learning and teaching as my parishioners and I are viewing the video series Catholicism, by Fr. Robert Barron. Each week as we view and discuss another section, I find my heart on fire with joy and love before the beauty and magnificence of the Truth of the Faith.

I will say that there was a time in my life when I found faith and the things of faith boring and unconvincing. But, over the years the Lord has given me a new heart and mind so that Holy Wisdom and knowledge of the faith are the joy and treasure of my heart.

In the Wisdom tradition of the scriptures, Lady wisdom is portrayed as a beautiful woman:

  1. Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gains understanding, for she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold. She is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who embrace her; those who lay hold of her will be blessed. (Proverbs 3:13-17)
  2. For in her is a spirit intelligent, holy, unique, Manifold, subtle, agile, clear, unstained, certain, Never harmful, loving the good, keen, unhampered, beneficent, kindly, Firm, secure, tranquil, all-powerful, all-seeing, And pervading all spirits, though they be intelligent, pure and very subtle. For Wisdom is mobile beyond all motion and she penetrates and pervades all things by reason of her purity. For she is a breath of the might of God and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty; therefore nothing defiled can enter into her. For she is the reflection of eternal light; the spotless mirror of the power of God, the image of his goodness. Although she is one, she can do all things, and she renews everything while herself perduring. Passing into holy souls from age to age she produces friends of God and prophets. For God loves nothing so much as the one who dwells with Wisdom. For she is fairer than the sun and surpasses every constellation of the stars. Compared to light, she is found more radiant; though night supplants light, wickedness does not prevail over Wisdom. (Wisdom 7:22-31)
  3. I resolved to have her for my bride. I fell in love with her beauty….I therefore have determined to take her to share my life, knowing that she would be my counselor in prosperity and my comfort in cares and sorrows…When I go home, I shall take my ease with her, for nothing is bitter in her company…I went all ways seeking how to get her…realizing that unless God gave her to me I could never possess her. So with all my heart I entreated the Lord. (Wisdom 8: selected verses).

Well, you get the point. She is beautiful and desirable. And I have come to experience this in the depths of my soul.

But there remains the very strange reality that, given her beauty, I could ever have missed her. And there is the on-going mystery that so many miss, and under appreciate her glory, her beauty and the joy of her.

Most prefer things far less beautiful, less captivating. Maybe it is T.V. or any number of passing diversions, creature comforts, dime-store novels, sports games featuring men moving a bag full of air (a.k.a., the “ball”) up and down a designated field of play.  Perhaps not evil in themselves, but how amazing that so much time is spent in them, while beautiful lady Wisdom, Holy Faith, sits home unadored and unattended to.

I thought of that when I saw the Ad in this video:

Crazy huh? Such a beautiful woman and he prefers I beer. I like beer but I love wisdom. How could this guy be so crazy? I want to say, “Look at her, she’s beautiful….I said look!” “Huh?” he says, “Oh pardon, me I need some chips to go with this beer.” And this, more often than not, is modern man, and woman too: walking right past beauty, dabbling in it at best, and preferring something less,  like beer.

Perhaps too the intoxicating effect of beer might be included in this analysis for as Scripture says,

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for idols.… (Romans 1:21-23)

Yes, this Ad is a powerful picture of so many of us who too easily value passing things over the glory of God and the profound beauty of his wisdom. Perhaps we could title this Ad and the choice it illustrates as: Beer or the Bride? Or alternately, the Lager or the Lady (As in “Lady Wisdom”). Yes, here is our choice.

Smart and suddenly dumb – Given our passion for passing things of this world, it also manifests that we are far more articulate about things of this world than the things of God and his wisdom. It often happens that people are passionate and extremely knowledgeable about sports, knowing even very arcane details about players, strategies, and prognostications of odds-makers. Others are passionate about politics, knowing in detail, party positions and why the other guy is so wrong. Still others are powerfully intelligent about their field of work, having highly developed skills. When we want to be, we’re pretty smart.

But when it comes to the faith, to wisdom, all of a sudden many of the same people are back in second grade again, with little to say about the faith. Thought they know the front line of the football team by heart, the names of the four Gospels escape them. You’d better believe they can engage in fast talk and in depth conversation about any number of worldly issues. But when it comes to knowing the faith and how to apply it to matters in question, suddenly we’re searching for words.

I thought about that when I saw this ad:

Again look at the beautiful woman, lets call her “Sophia” (Wisdom). But the guy’s praising beer. And look how articulate he is. But when the lovely and gracious Sophia asks him to articulate his love for her, he’s searching for words. OK, so I want to say, “Dude: look her in the eye and tell her she’s gorgeous and say, ‘How do I love thee, let me count the ways.‘”

But this is us. Gorgeous Lady Wisdom is with us, and our mind and heart are on holiday.

Sorry ladies, I realize this discourse about “gorgeous Lady Wisdom” may appeal more to the men in the readership, but you get the analogy, powerfully displayed by these beer ads.

Doxology – I want to say again, I have come to love wisdom. I cannot boast of this, only say, “Thank you Lord. Thank you for a new mind and heart, for better priorities. Thank you. Now please Lord, deepen my love.”

Thank you too, dear reader, for I have come to know that many of you too have a growing love for Lady Wisdom, for the beauty of truth. May God grant us increase.

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Disabled or Differently Abled? Toward a Deeper Recogition of the Dignity of the Disabled.

Allow me to begin with a parable. Every now and then I take a perfectly good paper clip and I untwist and reconfigure it for some purpose. Once I used untwisted paperclips to hang Christmas ornaments on the tree. Another time I untwisted and fashioned a paperclip into a hook to keep my file drawer from rolling open. Now if paperclips could see, or think and talk, they might be horrified and saddened to see a fellow paperclip so deformed. And perhaps I could try and explain that these “deformed” paperclips were actually not a disaster, they were quite useful and important to me in their “deformed” condition. But alas, the paperclips cannot understand this, they just “look” with sadness and horror on the deformed paperclips. After all how can you expect a paperclip to understand something other than clipping paper? They are just paperclips after all and can’t understand deeper things beyond the world they know, which is clipping paper.

I have often wondered if this isn’t something of the truth about us in our understanding of things such as disability, birth defects, and personal challenges of some of our fellow human family members. As we look upon the disabled, the handicapped, those who struggle with deformity, mental illness, profound and/or mild mental disability we are often moved to sadness and even horror. And we easily ask, “Why does God allow this?!” We quickly conclude that such people’s lives are unhappy or that they will never reach full potential.

And yet I wonder if we really know what we are talking about. Who of us can really say what our own purpose in God’s plan is, let alone anyone else’s? We are like paperclips in a drawer who know only one thing. Our minds are too small for us to ever understand the very special and significant role that even the most “impaired” in our world play. Perhaps in heaven we will realize what an indispensable and central role role they had in God’s plan and victory. Of all the paperclips in the drawer some of the most useful to me are the ones I twist and refashion.

A knowledge too high – I pray you will accept my humble example of a paperclip. I mean no disrespect to the human person in comparing us to paperclips. We are surely more precious and complicated and God does not glibly use us like paperclips. But my example must be humble to illustrate what is, for us, a knowledge too high to grasp: the knowledge of the dignity and essential purpose of every human being to God and his plan.

Our judgments in this matter cannot be much better than a paperclip in a drawer compared to God’s omniscient wisdom. If it is absurd for us to think a paperclip could understand our ways is it really much less absurd to think we can understand all God’s ways? And if we cannot understand his ways, why do we make judgments as to another person’s role, usefulness, beatitude or status?

We too easily look down on the poor, but scripture says we should look up to them and that God is especially close to the poor, the suffering, the brokenhearted and the humble. Scripture says he uses the lowly to humble the proud. And yet still we so easily look with pity on those we consider disadvantaged.

A Story – Over twenty years ago I worked for a year with the profoundly mentally disabled. They lay in beds and wheelchairs often with little muscle control. None of them could talk and only a few could engage in rudimentary communication. There was one man in his forties who had never emerged from the fetal position. He lay in a large crib his tiny, yet clearly adult body, curled up like a newborn babe. And on his face the most angelic smile that almost never diminished.

He had been baptized as an infant and to my knowledge could not have sinned. I looked with marvel each visit upon innocence and a beatific countenance. What an astonishing gift he was. And who knows, but God, why he was this way? But God DOES know and I think had very important reasons to permit this. There was something central and indispensable in this man’s existence. Some role only he could fill. Apparently I was not able to fill that role.

He was not disabled, he was differently abled, uniquely abled for something different than the ordinary. Looking upon him I had little doubt that he was directly in touch with God in a way that I never had been, for his radiant face infallibly conveyed that. With our human eyes we can be saddened even appalled. But we’ll understand it better by an by. One day, in the great by and by, we may well be surprised to learn that the most central and critical people in God’s plan were the most humble and often the most broken, and that we would never have made it without them.

This video depicts the paradox of disability that sometimes shines through to teach us that we do not see the whole picture. A child was born with significant defects but suddenly as he grew remarkable gifts showed forth. Just a little reminder from God, a glimpse of what God sees, that the disabled are to him differently and wonderfully abled. Meet Patrick Henry Hughes.

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On the Myopia of Low Self Esteem – Coming to Accept Ourselves as God Has Made Us

Most of us have certain things about our physical appearance that we hate, and can even obsess about. When I was in high school I was extremely skinny (130 lbs at 6 feet tall). My knees and elbows protruded, and I was embarrassed to be seen in shorts, or even short sleeved shirts. Generally I stayed covered up even when I ran or played sports. I used to wear tall socks to hide my boney legs and protruding knees.

Today I have the opposite problem, and it is my belly that protrudes, and I’m always looking for over sized shirts to hide the excess. The cassock also helps to hide a lot. 🙂

Another obsession, that I have largely been freed from, is the gap between my two front teeth. I used to be so embarrassed by it that I would tie them together with floss and try to get them to move together. But once I removed the floss they’d always move apart again.

I got both of these things from my father. He was stocky also had a gap between his teeth. He too was always trying to get the gap to go away and always trying to lose weight. But the fact is, he looked just like his father, as I look like just like my father; almost an exact replica. I can even wear the last set of eyeglasses my father wore before he died.

Pardon my personal reminiscences but it’s just a way of saying we all have things about our appearances that we wish we’re different.

I know that women generally have a lot more crosses in this area since there are so many expectations about what a woman should look like. The video at the bottom of the page says a lot about that. I have often been surprised how unhappy about their appearance some women I know are. These are women who I consider quite attractive.

But even as I puzzle over them feeling that way, I remember me and my obsession about the gap in my teeth. I remember a girl once told me she thought it was cute. And though I heard the words she said, they had no impact on me. I was just absolutely sure I looked goofy, and that everyone laughed at me behind my back. One friend told me he’d never really noticed the gap before, until I mentioned it. But still it remained my obsession for many years. It seemed no amount of contrary data would sway me from my conviction that the gap between my two front teeth, not even that big, really, made be look like a total goof.

Somewhere we lose touch with the fact that God knows us, loves us and has made us a certain way. Apparently God likes tall people, because he made a lot of them. He also likes short people, thin and fat people, Black, white brown, and everything in between, he’s made a lot of them all.

People talk today about self-esteem and the phrase, while not wrong, misses a step. For as the old saying reminds, “No one can give what he does not have. Hence self esteem requires that we have first experience esteem from others, and most ideally from God. Until and unless we have learned to experience God’s appreciation for us, and appreciation from others, it is pretty hard to to esteem ourselves properly. Either we go to the one extreme of obsessing on certain aspects, or we go to the other extreme of puffing our self up with phony pride and silly ostentation.

In a sense low self esteem about our physical appearance is usually a form of myopia, i.e. being “near” or “shortsighted.” For in it, we obsess on a few details but miss the whole picture. A false cure for low self esteem tries over look our flaws or insist they are not there. But the fact is, we all do have flaws, both physical, moral, spiritual and intellectual.  But the key is to see something bigger.

Consider the painting at the upper right. It hangs in my rectory, and is of the Blessed Mother. Looking at the painting, many have said, she is beautiful. And so she is. But on closer inspection many of the details are amiss. The hands are out of proportion, almost grotesquely large.  The eyes are “bugged out” and the ear is misplaced and underdeveloped by the painter. Yet, these details cannot spoil the fact that this is a beautiful painting of a beautiful woman, Mary, the Mother of God. When I point to the “flaws” most people tell me they didn’t notice.

Exactly! It is the near sightedness, the myopia of low self esteem to magnify the flaws we all have and miss the big picture which is most often quite acceptable, even beautiful. Truth be told, we’re all a mixed bag and there are flaws in us all.

Of course Satan would prefer us to sweat the small stuff of our physical appearance,  and our flesh, cooperates quite nicely. And Satan gets double payment. For, in focusing on our physical, in a myopic way, we are not thinking as much of spiritual matters.  And secondly, because we feel so lousy when comparing ourselves to the perfect standards of the usually computer enhanced, if not surgically altered, models and actors, we don’t feel as capable of any physical value, worth or excellence, let alone spiritual excellence.

Somewhere God is saying, I like you the way I made you. Become the man or woman I made you to be. Watch your health but don’t obsess with physical perfection. I didn’t make any two of you exactly alike and there’s a reason for that.

And to me I can hear God saying, You’ve become rotund alright, but it’s a sign that you have become more spiritually “well rounded.” Besides it keeps you humble, and pride is your worst enemy. And as for that gap in your teeth? I put it there. It is a sign of intelligence. You’re smart like your father was.

So, be of good cheer and don’t sweat the small stuff. Look to the bigger picture, count your gifts and blessings.

Here is a remarkable video of a young lady singing both parts of the same song in split screen. The words are a poignant expression of the pressure many women face to look beautiful and perfect. Consider some of the words:

I wish I could tie you up in my shoes, Make you feel unpretty too. I was told I was beautiful,  but what does that mean to you…. My outsides are cool,  my insides are blue.  Every time I think I’m through, it’s because of you…

You can buy your hair if it won’t grow,  You can fix your nose if he says so.  You can buy all the make-up that mac can make,  but if you can’t look inside you,  find out who am I to be,  in a position to make me feel so damn unpretty…

At the end of the day, I have myself to blame,  Keep on trippin….

I feel pretty….but unpretty

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On The Power of Music that Stretches Beyond Words – How Beauty Serves Truth and Goodness

I have learned in all this that music is powerful beyond words, and often does what words alone can never do. I have often heard or read a Scripture, which may have had only marginal impact on me. And then the choir takes it up in song and it is pressed on my heart like never before, such that I can never forget it.

I have also learned with humility that I may preach boldly, but that it is often the choir’s sung response that makes the thought catch fire. I have learned to link what I preach to what is sung and work carefully with the choir and musicians. For while the spoken word my inform and even energize, the sung word strikes even deeper, engraving the word not only in the mind, but touching the deepest parts of the heart.

Music can often go where the word alone cannot. Beauty draw us to goodness and truth.

In my parish tonight our choir had its annual concert. 900+ in attendance, standing room only. There was a 20 piece orchestra and music that ranged from classical to Gospel, all religious in nature.

In tonight’s praise-filled concert, the congregation spent as much time on its feet in praise as seated and listening. Twice, they would not let the choir stop, and the refrain had to be taken up on both occasions, three times before the Spirit said, “It is well.” No one could leave Church tonight without the words and melodies of those songs alive: Great is thy faithfulness Oh God my Father….A change, A change has come over me….For every mountain you brought me over, for every trial, you’ve seen me though….I’ve got to say Thank you Lord!

In the concert a song was sung that, to some extent helps to illustrate how music can go where words cannot. The song stretches back to a scene in the movie, The Mission.

The scene is of a 17th Century Jesuit missionary priest, Father Gabriel, who goes deep into the rain forest seeking to win souls for Christ. He has heard that the indigenous people living there, though hostile to strangers, have a wonderful gift for music. Arriving near a settlement, he is aware that suspicious and fierce warriors lurking among the trees, likely intent on killing him, surround him. But Fr. Gabriel takes out his oboe and begins to play the melody that was the theme for the movie.I have included the scene in a video below.

As he plays the beautiful melody, the men emerge from the trees and begin to listen, now aware that no man who means them harm could play such a beautiful melody.

It is all a perfect illustration of the ancient insight that the beauty is powerfully related to truth and goodness. So Fr. Gabriel opened the door to truth by the beauty of music. And where his words would likely have had no impact, or be met with hostility, the beauty of the melody he played made most of them drop their weapons and open the door to him. Now they were ready to hear his words. But it was music, it was beauty, that opened the way.

In recent years the beautiful melody played by “Fr Gabriel” has been set to words and is now sung to new audiences who never saw the now old movie. The song in Italian is called Nella Fantasia and a quick summary of the translation is:

I my dream I see a place where all live in peace and in truth, and souls are always free,  and fully human in the depth of their hearts.

Tonight in our concert the choir sing this beautiful piece, and I thought how, once a gain, it wasn’t just the words that had impact, it was the magnificent beauty of the melody. And, somehow the vision of the words was alive if, but for a moment, and the Kingdom of God shown through: that place of peace, truth, freedom and the human person fully alive.

Through beauty the vision, good and true, was shared in the depths of every soul present at the concert. For, in the end it is not a dream, it is the reality of the Kingdom of Heaven. The words may speak of a distant future, but the beauty of the music made it present now. Yes, the goodness and truth of the Kingdom were now, if but for a moment, expressed in the beauty of music and deepening the the commitment to follow the beauty, to goodness and truth.

Perhaps it was Fr. Gabriel playing his oboe all over again to us, hostile denizens of a cynical and jaded 21st Century. But the melody by its beauty rings true. And the beauty points to the truth and goodness of the vision and opens doors to the heart that mere words could never do. The cynical mind tell us it will never happen, but beauty tells us it will, and that it already does, for true beauty echoes from haeven.

And in a hushed Church, a word went forth, preceded by beauty, and for just a moment a dream, good and true, echoed in many hearts: In my dream I see a place where all live in peace and in truth, and souls are always free, and fully human in the depth of their hearts.

Music is powerful beyond words.

Here is the original scene from The Mission where Fr. Gabriel reaches the people through beauty (all but one).

And here is a version of the song based on the melody of Gabriel’s oboe. I regret I don’t have a recording of it by my own choir to share with you, but this video captures the beauty.  Again the Words are in Italian and the basic translation is I my dream I see a place where all live in peace and in truth, and souls are always free, and fully human in the depth of their hearts

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Neighbors, as Ourselves (Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time)

We live in a very competitive culture, don’t we? This competitiveness is reflected, I think, in the popularity of today’s reality TV shows, in which people try to beat each other through raw power, manipulation, and humiliation. Just consider their names: “Survivor,” “The Biggest Loser.”

Don’t get me wrong: competition can be a good thing. The down side, however, is that it can make us think that life is all about getting ahead of others. This worldview turns us into very selfish people, who concerned only about our needs and our goals. We encounter this selfishness today when children, the sick, or the elderly are seen as burdens who get in the way of our plans or our lifestyle. We see it in the resentment, envy, and depression people struggle with today because they don’t think they’re getting everything they deserve. And we see it reflected in the fact that fewer and fewer people these days enter the “service” professions of teacher, nurse, or priest- jobs concerned with giving, instead of getting.

This selfishness can also affect our relationship with God. It makes religion and spirituality nothing more than an exercise in self-fulfillment and self-discovery. It reduces forgiveness to a therapy which we do only when we’re ready, and only so we can be at peace after having been hurt. It turns helping people in need into an effort to feel good about ourselves.  And I heard a bishop recently complain that whenever he preaches about Christian sacrifice today, he feels a need to explain what its benefits are, because so many people are concerned only with “What’s in it for me?”

Such selfishness can make us lonely, because it leads us to view other people as either the competition to be beaten or as the means to an end- our end. And if we don’t think they’re helping us to achieve our goals, we drop them like a hot potato. That’s why the famous Christian writer C.S. Lewis once described hell, not as a fiery pit, but as an existence of supreme selfishness, in which people become more and more separated from each other, until they wind up in a terrible, eternal isolation.

Of course, selfishness is by no means unique to our culture. A tendency toward selfishness is a universal quality of our fallen, sinful human nature. That’s why in today’s gospel Jesus taught us to love our neighbor as ourself. Love is the antidote to selfishness- and the loneliness that comes with it. However, because selfishness can be such a powerful force in our lives, Jesus had to actually command us to love.

When I was younger I didn’t understand how love could be a commandment. But that’s because I was confusing “love” with being “in love.” Being in love is a wonderful thing. But it can also be a selfish thing, because by it we feel needed, wanted, accepted, and loved. However, the being “in love experience” doesn’t last forever, and it usually lasts less than two years. It’s when it ends that the real work of love begins- the love Jesus commands us to give. This love is not a feeling, but a choice. It’s a gift of our self that we make for the benefit of others so they can become the people God created them to be. It’s a choice to meet another’s person’s need, instead of focusing exclusively on our own. It’s sacrificial, not selfish.

Today’s gospel challenges us to give this kind of love. We should ask ourselves: Do we love others as much as we love ourselves? Consider the people in your life. Do we serve them, or do we expect them to serve us? Do we ever consider their needs? Do we even know what they really are? And if we do know, what should we do to meet those needs?

For instance, do we need to spend quality time with them? Do we just need to be with them- instead of being somewhere else? Do we need to talk with them and share our feelings? Do we need to really listen without judging, interrupting, or giving advice? Do we need to give them a hug or physical affection? Do we need to tell them that we love them? Do they need our forgiveness? Maybe they need us to help with the kids, repair the house, or read them a story. Maybe they need us to get professional help for a problem or addiction. Maybe they need a token of our love- a little gift, a night out, a note.

Everyone’s needs for love are somewhat different. We can’t just assume we know what they are. And we can’t assume that they’re the same as hours. We have to ask, then we have to act. Even if doing those things doesn’t come naturally to us. Even if we don’t feel like doing them. Even if we don’t think the people we’re doing them for really deserve them.

Sometimes it’s hard to love other people this way when they’re being difficult, or when we feel they don’t love us back. It’s tempting to withhold our love from them or shut ourselves off from them, because that’s a way we can punish them. But Jesus hasn’t called us to punish. He has commanded us to love. Let’s face it: Lovable people are easy to love. Difficult people are hard to love. Sometimes they require tough love. As disciples of Jesus, however, they are the measure of our love.

Loving others can indeed be a challenge. Our selfishness tries to prevent us from considering others’ needs in addition to our own. That’s why Jesus commands us to make the choice to love. Because life is not about getting ahead of others. And life is not just about us. As Christians, life is about loving- in the same way that Jesus loves us.

Readings for today’s Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/102311.cfm

Photo Credits: Wikipedia Commons, bengrey via Creative Commons, Wikipedia Commons

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Reciting the Law, Standing on One Foot – A Meditation on the Gospel for the 30th Sunday of the Year

There was an expression common among the Rabbis of Jesus’ time, and perhaps even now, wherein one Rabbi would ask another a question, but request the answer be given, “Standing on one foot.” Which is a Jewish way of saying, “Be brief in your answer.”

And that sort of expression may be behind the question that is raised today by the scholar of law who asks, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”

Just as an aside, it is likely, that the scholar of the law is not only asking for brevity since he is in a hostile stance with Jesus. (The text says he speaks to Jesus in order to “test” him). In effect he says to Jesus, “Alright, let’s get right to the point. You’re talking a lot of new things, but what is the greatest commandment?”

But for this reflection let’s just set aside the background hostilities and allow Jesus to recite the Law standing on one foot. And in so doing, Jesus recites the traditional Jewish Shema:

שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָד.
Šĕmaʿ Yisĕrāʾel Ădōnāy Ĕlōhênû Ădōnāy eḥād.
Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.

The fuller text recited by Jesus is from Deuteronomy 6:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. (Deut 6:4-6)

And Jesus adds, also in common Rabbinic tradition: And the second is like it, You  neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

That’s it, the whole Law, standing on one foot. The first table of the Law, (the first three Commandants): Love the Lord your God. The Second table of the Law, (Commandments 4-10), Love your neighbor.

It is said that the ancient Rabbi Hillel, being even briefer, said of the second table of the Law, Do not do unto others that which you would hate done unto yourself, and all the rest is commentary.

We like to make it more complicated, but it really isn’t.

  1. No other gods– If I really love God I should need separate laws that tell me I ought not put other gods, whether things or people ahead of him? No!, I want to be faithful and would never dream of being unfaithful by “sleeping with other gods” of any sort.
  2. I Love His Name – Neither do I need rules that tell me not to use God’s name hatefully, or in vain and empty ways. I love his Name, and just to hear it lights up my heart with love.
  3. I love to Praise Him – And if I love God, I do not need to be compelled by law or fear to come to Church on Sunday and worship him. I want to worship him and praise his name.
  4. I love my family, Church and Country – And if I love my family my Church and my country , I do not need to be told to reverence those who have lawful authority in those places. I love my parents and my family, and am willing honor, reverence and pray for them for all set in authority and honor there. I love too my Church and willingly love our leaders and pray for them. And I follow the teaching of the Church with joy, trusting that I am hearing the voice of the Lord who teaches me through the Church. And I love my country and pray for our leaders that God may uphold them and guide them. I  willingly follow all just laws and work for unity based in truth and for the common good.
  5. And I love my neighbors, So why would I want to kill them, whether physically, emotionally or spiritually. If I love others I reverence their life and act in ways that build them up and encourage them and help them to have a richer and more abundant life rooted in the truth. I would never act recklessly  to endanger any of them. Of course not, I love them.
  6. I Love human life – And if I love my neighbor, why would I tempt them, or exploit them sexually? If I love the human family, why would I endanger it by treating as light the great sacredness of human sexuality by which God calls us into existence? Why would I want to look at pornography or laugh at crude jokes that demean something so sacred? If I love others why would I merely want to gratify myself at the expense of others?  If I love, I grow away from these unloving things.
  7. I love others by respecting what is rightfully theirs – And if I love others why would I wish to steal from them, harm or endanger what belongs to them or unjustly deprive them of what is rightfully theirs? Why would I want to act unjustly toward others by refusing them just wages or by giving just work for just wages? Why would I be unjust to the poor by refusing to help them when it is in my ability to help them. For if I have two coats one of them justly belongs to the poor. If I love others why would I steal or act unjustly? No, I want to help them and am glad when they are blessed. I respect what they rightfully have have and share in their joy.
  8. I speak the truth in love – And why would I lie to those I love? Or why would I seek to harm their reputation or gossip about them? Why would I pass on hurtful things that I don’t even know are true? And why would I fail to share the truth in love? Love rejoices in the truth, so why would I lie or suppress the truth?
  9. I rejoice in the good fortune of others – And if I love others why would I seek to unjustly possess what they have or resent them for what they do have? No, I love them and am happy for them. Perhaps their blessings mean that I too will be blessed.
  10. I reverence the families of others – And why would I ever seek to harm the marriage or family of another or resent them for the gift they have in their spouse and family? No I am happy for their blessings. I am happy that my friend has a beautiful wife and well-behaved children. Out of love I seek to encourage him to rejoice in his gifts!

So there’s a little commentary if you need it. But it all comes down to love. Love rejoices in God and wants whatever God wants. Love rejoices in the other and wants what is best for them.

Now of course love is the key. And many of us struggle to love. But God can give us a new heart, a heart that actually starts loving God, fully and freely; a heart that has a deep love, even affection, for everyone. God can do that for us. Yes, if we want it, God can do it:

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. (Ez 36:26-27)

A thousand questions and doubts may come to mind, when we are called to love. It is true even when we love, we cannot always say yes. Love sometimes must say no, and love cannot approve everything. Love must sometimes correct and reprove. But, in the end, people know if you love them or not, and they know if you love God. And if people know of your love and experience it, it is possible to say even difficult and challenging things. Yes, in the end, our thousand questions are still answered by love.

And now we ought to stop. For, since Jesus is giving the law standing on one foot, then the preacher must also brief. You and I like to complicate things and ask lots of question. But in the end, it is simple enough:  Love! And all the rest is commentary.

This song reminds us that to love God, is first to experience powerfully his love for us. One day it will finally dawn on each of us that the Lord died for us.

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Who Sows Sparingly Will Also Reap Sparingly – As Seen on T.V.

There are a number of Biblical texts that speak of being generous to the poor, for to do so will brings bountiful blessings. Or put negatively, if we are stingy we will come up short in our own blessings.

Just for a brief post today, consider the following verses, and then see a rather funny demonstration of these verses in a Fita Crackers Ad (from the Philippines).

Here is a promise from the Lord:

Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap (Lk 6:38).

But the text goes on to state a clear principle:

For the measure you measure to others, will be measured back to you.” (Lk 6:38)

And again comes the rule of returning proportion:

Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously (2 Cor 9:6)

And so the Lord the admonishes us

One man gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty. (Prov 11:24)

And now a word from our sponsor that illustrates well the text: Who sows sparingly will reap sparingly. The Ad is “clever by half.”

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Seize the Day

Benjamin Franklin once said, “Never leave that ‘till tomorrow which you can do today.” It’s good advice, and it also happens to be Jesus’ message in today’s gospel. First he told us to look at the signs of the times and see that the kingdom of God is at hand. Then he spoke of the need to settle with one’s opponent before it’s too late, and we be thrown into prison. This was Jesus’ way of saying that when it comes to matters of faith, religion, and conscience, don’t put off until tomorrow what we should do today. For instance,

·         Do we have a sins we need to confess?

·         A wound we need to heal?

·         A restitution to make?

·         A good intention to act upon?

·         Priorities to shift?

·         A relationship to restore?

If so, Jesus says to us: “What are you waiting for?” Do what you need to do today! Because one day, there will be no tomorrow.

Readings for today’s Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/102111.cfm