Nineteen years ago today I had the privilege of being ordained a permanent deacon in the Roman Catholic Church, I offered my first homily the following Sunday. It appears below and it is an indication of the work of the Holy Spirit. Thank you for your prayers and support through these years, and when you have an opportunity please offer a prayer for me today.
The Easter Season is almost over; a season that reminds us Jesus rose
from the dead to give us Hope that someday we would join Him in heaven. Pope John Paul II said many times: “Do not be
afraid! There is hope because of
God.” God’s Hope came to us in a special
way through Jesus’ resurrection.
In the second reading John
told us: “In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that He loved us…”
It’s awesome to think that God loves each and every one of us. He loves us totally. We didn’t earn His love; we receive it as a
gift.
Today’s Gospel gives us a
glimpse of His love for His disciples and for us. “I have told you this so that my joy may be
in you and your joy might be complete.
This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.”
That sounds simple and
straightforward, “…love one another as I love you.” St. Francis de Sales wrote: “Our Lord did not
say, ‘Love those who are virtuous,” [He] said: Love one another as I have loved
you,” without excluding anyone.
“… love one another as I love
you …” it sounds simple and straightforward, but loving as Jesus did is hard
work. Loving others as Jesus did takes
perseverance, discipline and determination.
The Lord will give us the grace to love as He did, but only if we allow
His grace to fill our lives.
But how do we love one
another? St. Paul said: “Love is
patient, love is kind. It is not
jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not
seek its own interests, it is not quick tempered, it does not brood over injury,
it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things … So faith, hope and love remain these
three; but the greatest of these is love.”
Our culture emphasizes,
really idealizes, “Self,” “self-fulfillment” but our call is to put others
ahead of self. This week do not seek
your own interests but put others first all week, every day; if you do, you
will experience the joy of God’s love in a profound yet simple way.
The story of the RABBI’S
GIFT: There is a story told about a
famous monastery that has fallen on hard times. Once a great order, its many
buildings had been filled with young monks, but now it was nearly
deserted. Visitors no longer came there to be nourished by prayer. A handful of
old monks shuffled through the cloisters and praised God with heavy hearts. It
was just a matter of time until their community would die out.
On the edge
of the monastery woods, an old rabbi had built a little hut. No one ever spoke
with him, but the monks felt somehow assured by his prayerful presence.
As the
leader, the Abbot of the monastery agonized over the future, it occurred to him
to go visit the rabbi. Perhaps he could offer some word of advice. So one day
after morning prayers, the Abbot set out to visit the rabbi.
As he
approached the hut, the Abbot saw the rabbi standing in the doorway, his arms
outstretched in welcome. And the rabbi motioned the Abbot to enter.
They sat
there for a moment in silence, until finally the rabbi said: “You and your
brothers are serving God with heavy hearts. You have come to ask a teaching of
me. I will give you this teaching, but you can only repeat it once. After that
no one must say it aloud again.”
The rabbi
looked straight at the Abbot and said, “One among you is the Messiah.” For a
while all was silent. Then the rabbi said, “ Now you must go.” The abbot left
without a word.
The next
morning, the abbot called his monks together in the chapter room. He told them
he had received a teaching from “ the rabbi who walks in the woods”, and that
after he told it his teaching was never again to be spoken aloud. Then he
looked at each of his brothers and said, “ The rabbi said that one among us is
the Messiah!”
In the days,
and weeks, and months that followed, the monks pondered this riddle, and
wondered what it could mean. The messiah is among US? Could he have possibly
have meant one of us here at the monastery? If that is the case then which one
of us is it? Do you suppose that he meant the Abbot? If he meant anyone then he must have meant the
Abbot. He has been our leader for more
than a generation.
On the other
hand he might have meant brother Thomas. Certainly brother Thomas is a holy man.
Everyone knows and respects brother Thomas’ keen spirituality and insight.
Certainly he
could not have meant brother Elred. Elred gets very crotchety at times. But,
when you look back on it, Elred is almost always right, often VERY right.
Maybe the rabbi did mean brother Elred.
But surely
not brother Phillip, he is so passive, a real nobody. But then, almost mysteriously, he has a gift
for somehow always being there when you need him. Maybe Phillip is the messiah.
As
they contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat each other with
extraordinary respect; on the off chance that one of them might actually be the
Messiah.
As time went
by there was a gentle, whole-hearted, human quality about them which was hard
to describe but easy to notice. They
lived with each other as people who had finally found something. But they prayed and read the Scriptures
together as people who were always looking for something.
Now, because
the forest in which it is situated is very beautiful, it so happened that
people did still occasionally come to visit the monastery. They came to picnic
on the lawn, to wander among the paths, even now and again to go into the
dilapidated chapel to meditate.
Hardly knowing why, they began to come back to the monastery
more frequently – to picnic, to play, and to pray. As they did so, even
without being conscious of it, they sensed this aura of extraordinary humility
and respect that now began to surround the old monks, and seemed to radiate out
from them and permeate the place.
There
was something strangely attractive, even compelling about it. They began to
bring friends to show them this special place. Before long, people were coming from far and
wide to be nourished by the prayer life of the monks.
Some of the
younger men who came to visit started talking to the old monks. After a while one asked if he could join them,
then another, and then another. More and
more young men were asking, once again, to become part of the community. Within a few years,
the monastery had once again become a striving order and, thanks to the rabbi’s
gift, a vibrant center of light and spirituality in that area.
“One among you is the Lord”
Treat everyone with reverence; Treat everyone like they were the Lord and you
will love as Jesus asked.
May God Be Blessed!
