I remember reading an article a few years ago about two men who were talking in a locker room after working out. The one-man droned on and on about his wife and all the things that she had done during the week that had annoyed him. She had yelled at him for something, criticized this or that, and in his estimation “had never stopped nagging.” After he finished ranting for a few minutes, he said something about having to go home to her anyway because that’s what you “have to do.” Then he said: “You know how it is.” The other man replied, “No, I don’t. I love my wife. I enjoy everything about her. I go home to her because I love her and want to see her.” I am sure the tension in that room was thick enough to cut with a knife.
It illustrates something that we all seem to fall into though from time to time. Earlier this week I saw this article about the “minimum” set of things we must do as Catholics to be considered actively living our faith. The minimum. That doesn’t sit well with me. Just like the locker room conversation above, I don’t go to church with the attitude of “well I have to.” I try to remember and behave, with the understanding that God loves me. He died for me. I get the chance, through the infinite grace and mercy of God, to go and be with Him as He comes down to be with us in Worship. To receive the unfathomable gift of the Eucharist in which God begins to transform me into the kind of man I should be, not the kind of man the world tends to encourage me to become. We shouldn’t be asking “how much do I have to do to show my love for God,” but rather “How much more can I do to live actively in this relationship with Him.”
For me, that’s what the Gospel is all about today.
When you have done all you have been commanded,
say, ‘We are unprofitable servants;
we have done what we were obliged to do.’
While it’s a good thing to go to Church because we realize that it is through Jesus Christ and the Sacraments that we can attain heaven, those bare minimums are just what “we have been commanded to do.” Love doesn’t work that way. Love does what is asked of it, like coming home from the gym. It goes further than that, though. It defends your lover from verbal attacks, it reminds others to speak well of them. When we love, we want to know all we can about that person. If someone asked me about my wife and I said: “I’m not sure. We don’t talk. After we got married, I moved to California and haven’t really spoken to her. I love her though.” Would you believe me? Of course not. The same with God. How can we claim to love God if we spend most of our time in “locker room talk” putting Him down, and bemoaning what He asks of us?
That’s why St. Paul reminds us in his second letter to Timothy:
For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice
but rather of power and love and self-control.
So do not be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord,
nor of me, a prisoner for his sake;
but bear your share of hardship for the gospel
with the strength that comes from God.
Be bold in your faith. Stand up for Jesus and the Church. When all else fails, when you don’t have the words to speak eloquently, let the emotion in your heart well into your face. That’s what will attract others to Jesus. That moment when you speak of your lover with a crack in your voice, a tear in your eyes and gratitude in your demeanor speaks more sophisticatedly than any five-dollar word you might come up with. The Precepts are just a start, the “minimum” for showing your love. There is so much more! My favorite saying has become: “Just love Jesus.” Love Him in the Sacraments. Love Him in the Church. Love Him in your neighbor. Love Him in your enemy. Everything else will follow.
A reflection on the readings for October 6th, 2019: The Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time.