St. Maria Goretti

A certain priest that I know, and you know him too, so I won’t tell you which one, needed his best white alb, which is the white robe that is worn underneath the vestments, dry cleaned before he left town to do a wedding. But as a result of poor planning, the priest remember this the day before he was supposed to leave for the wedding. So he looked in the phone book, and he found a dry cleaners way south of town, that had an ad that said, “One-Hour Dry Cleaners”. It would take over an hour to get there and another hour to get back, but the priest thought that it would be worth it. So he got in his car. He drove an hour. He found the dry cleaners. And sure enough, on the outside of the building it said, “One-Hour Dry Cleaners”. He goes in and fills out the little tag thing, and he gives his alb to the lady at the counter and says, “I’ll be back in an hour to pick this up.” The lady says, “I can’t get this back to you until Thursday.” My priest friend went crazy. “I thought you did dry cleaning in an hour!?!” he argued. “No,” she replied, “That’s just the name of the store.”

You can imagine how angry the priest was. When something, or someone, is not what they say they are, it drives us crazy. Why call yourself something that you are not? You can see where I’m going with this. My brothers and sisters, it is just as confusing for us to call ourselves a Catholic Christian and then NOT live out our Faith. Jesus makes it very clear in our Gospel today that there are two great Commandments: We are love God with our all and we are to love our brothers and sisters as ourselves. The two go together. If we think that we are going to Christians, Catholic or otherwise, love God and NOT love our brothers and sisters, Jesus is telling us today that we got it wrong. Loving our brothers and sisters is not an option, it is an essential part of what’s going on here. It’s what we are to do IF we dare to call ourselves “Catholic Christians”.

People have a right to expect that from us when we call ourselves “Catholic Christians”, just like that priest had a right to expect that the “One-Hour Dry Cleaners” would in fact be a-one-hour-dry-cleaners. There’s a major problem in our world today when we’ve got all kinds of people and things and groups calling themselves things that they are really not. How can we believe anybody or anything? Our love has got to be real, and authentic, and lived out. It does us no good to say that we love others and then do nothing about it. It takes more than words. Even with our love of God. Anybody can say that they love God. There are those people on TV twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, who are constantly saying that they love God. And they want you to send them a hundred dollars to keep on loving God. Real love, real Faith, has to be authentic. And how do we do that in such a fake world?

Well, I think that we have a perfect example of how to do this, how to be authentic in Jesus. Jesus didn’t read the Gospel, He was the Gospel. He brought hope, and peace, and love to every person, and to every situation that He came into. He spoke and lived the truth. People saw that His words and His actions matched up, and they wanted to be like Him! Jesus changed the world because He wasn’t offering a watered-down, imitation, well-it’s-kinda-like-it” love. It was the real thing. It changed lives. It endured the Cross and was STILL love. In fact, the sacrificial nature of Jesus’ love reminds all of us that the vast majority of time our love is not going to be a “warm and fuzzy” kind of love. Sometimes love hurts. It certainly wasn’t enjoyable with nails in your hands and feet. But it was still love. It wasn’t the nails that held Jesus to that Cross. It was His love for you and me. And many times it won’t be our feelings, or our rewards, or our positive feedback that makes us make sacrifices for others. It will be our love. It will be the love that has been so generously been given to us by a God Who came down to His people. The two loves, love of God and love of our brothers and sisters, are connected. You can’t really do one without the other. And vice versa.

How many times this week will we be given the opportunity to love God or our brothers or sisters, or both? The possibilities are endless. We can make a visit. We can make a phone call. We can give a hug. We can run an errand. We can take the time to listen. We can vote. We can write a letter. We can pat somebody on the back for a job well done. We can pray. We can serve. We can help out. The possibilities are endless.

God’s love enables us to live out the two great commandments. Once you really experience it, nothing is ever the same. May we share that same transforming love with others. May God’s love make all of us authentic in our love - for Him and for others!

May God bless us this evening, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit… AMEN !!!

St. Maria Goretti… Pray for us !!!