-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 9:30 Sunday
Live it
Mary has just had the most powerful religious or spiritual experience of her life - the annunciation. That closeness and intimacy with God. She has been longing for God her whole life. She believes that God has visited her. She is on fire!
And what does she do? Evidently she did not run to the synagogue to share with the rabbi or the scribe this great spiritual phenomenon, evidently she did not call her spiritual director. She did not meet up with her small faith sharing group.
No, she went to verify the message of the angel, she went to confirm this spiritual experience in the real life of her kinswoman Elizabeth. She went as a contemplative of light radiating the presence and love of God and she manifested the meaning of her religious experience by caring for another.
It seems easy for us to long for a connection with God in faith. We want to feel religious. We are seeking spirituality. Some of us are frustrated and not experiencing enough. Others of us claim to experience this depth of religion but we do not confirm it with compassion.
The tell tale sign of true communion with God in faith is compassion for our neighbor. We cannot escape this demand. Mary shows us the truth. To encounter the loving and living God is to conceive of that love in and through one's life. There is no true love of God that is absent of a true compassion for one's neighbor in need.
I believe we can work this system in reverse as well. This is the recommendation of Jesus. Let us love one another, for God is love. We can deepen our religious experience, our spirituality by extending our compassion and love for others in the moment, here, and now, in the simple, in that which is most common, close to us, available to us, accessible!
So, if we are longing for communion with God, a deep spiritual experience.....love!
3 comments:
WOW, YES!!! Truth straight up! Loud & clear.
In Third Thursday Theology when you asked the question of "who are you caring for" it also struck me. A lot of parents these days do not care for their children. Some parents think when a kid gets to be oh, 9 or 11 or 13 that the child can fend for himself, be self sufficient. The thinking is, you're old enough, make your own breakfast, make your own lunch, dinner is in the fridge. I think Mary served her boy until he left home, just my opinion, but that's what love does, it gives, it serves, it nurtures. These days Spouses don't care for one another in acts of serving one another, with small acts of love & kindness & service that separate us from the beasts! How do you make love in a marriage continue to grow? It's not in the bedroom as much as all the acts of caring & giving in a day.
The message of being compelled to love others when on fire with the love of God - and that we encounter even more of the living and loving God in our lives by doing so - really resonates with me. In thinking about that notion my mind went to "the opposite" to test its validity. What I mean is, at times of sin in my life - when I was not fostering love - I can admit that I did not experience the sense of joy and peace that is part and parcel of true communion with God. In retrospect, the difference of these two experiences is enormous - but at the time of being caught up in sin, somehow it is forgotten. This challenge from the Matador to recognize the evidence of communion with God in times of love and compassion is a great reminder for me in this ripe part of Advent.
Wow. Great reactions from the heart.
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