A friend of mine asked me to visit her in the hospital
this weekend. I told her I would try,
but that it was an extremely busy weekend, and I couldn’t promise anything. Her last message to me (we played phone tag)
was, “I know you’re busy saying all those Masses”. Do Catholics really think that all priests do
is say Mass! I guess so because that’s
all that most of them see us do. So, let
me go through the weekend I had…it was busy, and not just saying Mass.
I took students out to Outback Friday night, a
tradition we started years ago after our Alternative Spring Break trip. We always joke about fasting for a couple of
days so we can enjoy the feast of Blooming Onion, dinner, and dessert….and to
expand our stomachs to make more room.
After that, I met up with a grad student for a late-night drink. We talked about faith, God’s Will, and vocation. It was awesome. Woke up early Saturday morning to celebrate
Mass and Holy Hour which I do every day.
Then, had two meetings for spiritual direction. Went down the road to celebrate a baptism;
the baby cried the whole time! That was
a quick baptism. Visited people in the
hospital – first Sibley and then Georgetown.
Came back to Newman, heard confessions, then went out with a student to
a parish in Maryland to take up a collection for this year’s spring break
trip. Brought the student back to
campus, then went back out to Maryland to hear confessions for 2 hours at a
women’s retreat. Returned to campus
around 11:30 pm. 15 hour day which is
pretty typical in the priesthood…but not always with all the back and
forth. Woke up at 6:45 this morning
which was ridiculous (!). Went back out
to the parish to continue the collection with two other students, came back to
two more appointments, confessions, and now hear for tonight’s Masses. So, yeah, priesthood is a bit more than
saying Masses!
I really just wanted to let you know what priests
do, and don’t know if your priests back home have ever done that. I didn’t intend to tie this into the
readings, but there was a part of this that relates. On Friday afternoon when the hospital visit
calls came in, I basically said to the Lord, ‘my weekend is packed, Lord. My plate is full. I can’t do these visits’. What came back to me was pretty much, ‘make
room’. Like, the equivalent of ‘leave
room for dessert’. This ties in to the
readings because to love as God loves – to be holy as God is holy or to be perfect
as our heavenly Father is perfect – is to expand our hearts to love more.
Jesus gives us many examples of how to love as God
loves and to be perfect as God is perfect, including love your enemies. We might feel like our plate of love is
full. We love people who love us. God is saying tonight to make room for
dessert. Make room in your hearts to
love your enemies. Expand your hearts,
expand your love, expand your charity.
This is very hard to do, and so if we start to live this, then we start
to believe that we are actually being perfect as the Father is perfect. God loves those who love Him and those who
hate Him. “He makes his sun rise on the
bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust”.
The examples from the Gospel are telling us to show
love in ways that people haven’t seen before.
Love your enemies, turn the other cheek, give your cloak, go the extra
mile, and give to those who ask. Let’s
take “turn the other cheek” and see what that means to you right now. Fr. Robert Barron in the “Catholicism” video
series analyzes what “turn the other cheek” means and uses famous examples of
people who responded to violence with non-violence: Gandhi, Martin Luther King,
and Pope John Paul II. His main point was that turn the other cheek adds a
third option in reaction to violence. We
are used to the other two: fight or
flight. Turn the other cheek means to
stand your ground and to effect a change in the one bringing violence. Really, it means to turn the other one. To turn the other from violence to
non-violence, from hate to love, from lies to truth. He gives specific, creative examples
involving Bishop Tutu in South Africa and Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa brought a starving child to a
bakery, and asked the baker for some bread for the kid. The baker violently spat in her face. She turned the other cheek, and said, “thank
you for that gift for me. Now, how about
something for the child”. On campus
here, it might happen during class when a professor attacks the Church in the
middle of a lecture (which happens more often than I would have thought). Turning the other cheek might mean to raise your hand during class
and say, “that’s not true” and why. One
GW Catholic did that (and the professor apologized to the class), and another
went to a professor after class. In friendships, turning the other cheek might
involve fraternal correction when you correct someone in love for something
they did or said. The basic point is, “don’t
do this to me again”.
Finally, the best example of all of loving as the Father
loves is the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He loved his enemies; he gave his life for those who were killing
him! He turned the other cheek, gave his
cloak, and went the extra mile….for all of us.
We remember this in the Eucharist at Mass, and ask the Lord to give us
the grace to love as God loves and to expand our hearts. That, in one way this
week, we will love our enemies, be holy as God is holy, and be perfect as our
heavenly Father is perfect.
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