How do I seek the Lord?

Video of Gospel and Homily from 11AM Mass on August 4, 2019.

When we die, what do we take with us?

Reading this weekend’s Gospel reminded me, oddly enough, of a story I once saw on one of those whimsical signs on the wall of a Jimmy John’s. I’ll recount it briefly for you. A man was on vacation at a sandy beach somewhere. He came across a poor looking fisherman sitting in a chair on the beach. The fisherman was sipping a beer while he fished for his family’s dinner. The man explained to the fisherman how he could work a bit harder, sell some more fish and buy nets. Then he could work a bit harder, sell more fish, and buy a bigger boat. Eventually, with a lot of hard work, he could one day be a fish magnate, selling fish all around the world. The fisherman asked the man, “what would I do then?” The man responded, “Well, then you could retire to the beach, sip a cold beer, and do whatever it is that you enjoy for the rest of your life.”

I think the fisherman had it figured out. The story gives the impression that his family was happy and that they were able to fulfill their needs. They did not have to worry about all sorts of extra things like whether the boat would make it back safely, how to pay the hired hands, where to sell their fish. So what if they didn’t have an enormous house, in which they could store many things? So what if they didn’t have much to pass down to the next generation? The author of Ecclesiastes asks the question, “what profit comes to man from all the toil and anxiety of heart with which he has labored under the sun?” The Lord answers it in the Gospel, asking if our life was demanded of us this very night, to whom would our riches belong? If we store up the riches of this earth, “but are not rich in what matter to God,” then what can we expect God to say to us when we meet Him? Jesus makes it fairly clear that the Father will not be congratulating us based on the size of our bank account or how many cars we have. What will he be asking us? How have you allowed Christ to live within your heart?

The answer to that question is the most important one we will ever give, and we are answering it every moment of every day of our lives. With every action, we bring Christ closer to our hearts or push him further away. With every action, we answer God’s question.

Let’s return to our fisherman from the wall of Jimmy John’s. Say that he thinks about it, talks to his family, and he decides to become a fish magnate after all. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that. Let’s say this fisherman is Catholic, but not too concerned about his faith. One day, he reads St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians and is convicted by the words, “Put to death […] the parts of you that are earthly: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and the greed that is idolatry. Stop lying to one another.” The fisherman has a change of heart, and he decides to live his life by these rules. He starts to learn his faith, and he begins to live it. He treats his employees fairly, paying them a living wage and ensuring they aren’t in undue danger. He cares for the environment, not just because he has a vested interest in ensuring he will have somewhere to fish, but also because it is good to care for God’s creation. He might even give everybody Sunday off so that they can worship God and spend time with their families. Instead of opening more bank accounts to hold his profits—the modern equivalent of building a bigger barn—he establishes a scholarship fund for disadvantaged youth to attend college, he helps fund various charitable organizations, he gives generously to his parish’s Glory and Praise initiative, and he might even go beyond the standard 10% in his tithing.

Whichever path—remaining a simple fisherman or becoming a fish magnate—the fisherman chooses can lead to him inviting Jesus closer to his heart every day, just as most paths open to us are capable of doing. Each path has different challenges. Each path will stretch us and our families in a different way. What is absolutely critical, though, is that we seek to follow our Lord in every situation. If we does that, with honesty, then we will never go wrong.

Note: This was written and preached for the weekend of August 3-4, 2019. It was published online on August 14, 2019.

Today’s Readings:
August 4, 2019
18th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C
Ecclesiastes 1:2, 2:21-23; Psalm 90; Colossians 3:1-5, 9-11; Luke 12:13-21

How do we love?

God loves me into existence. He has loved me since before he formed me in my mother’s womb,1 and he will love me long after my bones turn to dust.2 Every moment of my existence is due to God’s love for me.

How do I respond to this love? The only response that could possibly be close to sufficient is to love God with every bit of my existence: with all my heart, and with all my soul, and with all my mind.3 God has given me everything, so it makes sense that I should love him back with everything. But what does this look like? There are some obvious answers to what loving God looks like: attending Mass, praying, trying not to sin. But that is not all that is required of me.

God doesn’t just love me into existence. God loves you into existence, too. God loves everyone that you or I will meet today into existence. Every person who has ever existed: Donald Trump, Barack Obama, St. Pope John Paul, St. Mother Teresa, the guy down the street who is always mad about your lawn, the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Peter: God loves them all into existence. Immediately after telling us to love God, Jesus tells us that we must love our neighbors as ourselves.4 To truly love God, we must also love those whom he loves. To say we love God and to mistreat our neighbor at the same time is hypocrisy! Jesus tells us that whatever we do to the least of our brothers and sisters, we do to him.5 If we want to love God, we must also love all our brothers and sisters in this world.6

Love is not a thing that we can practice sometimes. We can’t act in hate toward one person and expect it not to have an effect our ability to love another person. This works in our favor, though! When we act out of true love for someone, it grows our ability to love in general. By loving our neighbor, we learn to love. We learn to love God by loving our neighbor, and by loving our neighbor we love God.7

But what does this look like? How do we love our neighbors?

The readings today give us a great starting point. God called the Israelites—and us—in the Exodus to treat the foreigners among us as any other citizen, because ultimately, we are all citizens not of this earth, but of heaven. We should not do wrong to those who are vulnerable, such as widows or orphans. Paul tells and shows us that by living a moral life, we can become models of good behavior, and love our brothers and sisters by showing them the way to happiness. We turn away from our idols of self and let go of the idea that we must protect our time from the encroachment of our neighbors. A wise priest once told me never to make my schedule too tight: we must allow for those “God moments,” where you run into someone who just needs to talk.

But we can do better than this. Love is the only virtue that remains in Heaven, so it is critical to work on it as much as we can! I believe that the best examination of our love was written by St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians:

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.8

we can use this as an examination of conscience to see how we are doing with love. Have I been patient with myself? Have I been kind to my neighbor? Have I born the burdens that God has allowed me to experience this day?

Love your neighbor as yourself, so that you are able to love the Lord, your God, with all of your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

Today’s Readings:
Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A
Exodus 22:20-26; Psalm 18:2-3, 3-4, 47, 51; 1 Thessalonians 1:5c-10; Matthew 22:34-40