For me, the hardest words to say are, "1 love you." I think they’re even harder to say that, “I’m sorry.” I'm not sure if it comes from being a guy since a lot of times we guys don't like to talk about our feelings. Or if it comes from my Germanic heritage where even I love you,“Ich Liebe dich,” sounds more like the beginning of a bar brawl than a term of endearment. Or if it has to do with being a priest, but it's tough for me to say, "I love you." I do hope that, even if I can't say it, I nonetheless live it out, though I know I don't always do that. That's what I find fascinating about the gospel today. On the one hand, you have a group of Pharisees who want to show just how stupid they think Jesus is by trapping him. They ask him a question in order to trip him up. Basically, they ask him to summarize the Jewish faith. Jesus could have become angry with them. He could have told them to go away since they are not only not his followers but they had no intention of becoming his followers; but he didn't. Instead, he loved them as much as he did his followers and told them that the heart of discipleship is love. In both his words and actions, he showed love.
This past Tuesday, the students at St. Thomas put on a question and answer session called, "Why do Catholics do that." The four campus ministers, Fr. Ev, John Donaghy, Misty Heinen, and I, took questions about catholic teaching from anyone who showed up. I walked in, prepared to answer the questions 1 felt competent to answer and hoping that there wouldn't be too many that I wouldn't know, though I was confident that the other campus ministers could make up for my shortcomings. We fielded questions about purgatory, the relationship of scripture to tradition, indulgences, saints, and numerous other topics. In the questions, I became aware by the way that some of the people phrased them, that some were not catholic. 1 figured that some people were considering joining the church or had roommates or friends who were catholic that couldn’t answer a question for them and told them about this. After the presentation, while talking to a student who is pretty active at St. Thomas, I commented that I thought the evening when well. He said something along the lines of, "Yeah, I just think they sent nice people this year." When I asked him what he meant by that, 1 was surprised and upset to learn that one of the fundamentalist evangelical groups in town, one of those that don't consider Catholics to be Christians, regularly sends students to this event in order to "trip us up", similar to the way the Pharisees did in today's gospel.
Now, I have to admit that it's fortunate that I found this out afterwards. I'm sure it would have colored my answers had I known, especially since 1 couldn't help but rethink all of my answers afterwards and put more anger in them; more "You were the ones who broke away from us." And "You were the ones who took out books from the Old Testament."
It would have been a lot easier for me to be rude to them if I'd have known that they weren't Catholics or even people trying to understand the Catholic Church better. Even though I'm a pretty nice guy, I'm also a person who has pretended a couple of Jehovah's witnesses weren't at the door in order to avoid having to talk to them. I just kept going about my business and didn't answer the persistent doorbells and knocking.
Jesus, on the other hand, found a way to stand up for his beliefs, to do so unequivocally, and to live out those beliefs, namely the law of love, as he was being attacked. This love is, in some ways, what is missing in our society. Love is what tells us that turning someone into some thing is wrong. Love tells us that every pregnancy is a gift. Love is what forces us to stop and not hurt our wife or our children. Love is what stops us from honking the horn at the elderly person who is not driving well. Love is what compels us to give to those who are need. And love is what makes us treat all people, especially those who persecute us, with respect and dignity.
In the early church, there was one characteristic that shined out before all others. Even when we were in the midst of terrible persecutions, as some of Christians were being killed by wild animals for sport, people knew us because of our love. In this world where vengeance, anger, violence and terror are the norm, we must once again be the church towards which people remark, "See how the Christians love one another."
