Our second reading, St. Paul talks about the virtue of love.
St. Paul talks about the virtue of love and thought it would be good to reflect on that virtue because it is the greatest virtue, the greatest way of living, the greatest way of acting, the greatest way of thinking, the greatest way of treating other people, the greatest way of living.
Being is to love and we are made to love. Love is perfection. You know, we are living a life to be perfect. As Christians, we're striving to be perfect and love is perfection. Perfection is love. And so this should be a focus. And when we think of love, we're thinking of someone else. We're not thinking of primarily of ourself.
Love is outgoing. Love is effusive. Love is seeking the good of another, seeking the good of God, making him happy, pleasing him, doing his will, seeking his glory first, and seeking the good of our neighbor.
And at the same time, we're so filled with irritation, annoyance, dislike, and we have so many disagreements.
We have so many disagreements with our neighbor, so many differences with our neighbor, and this is the way we live. We live in this life with this kind of contrast, this kind of struggle.
And so love is not an easy thing. It's not something we're born with, but love is a great thing, and it is easy once we get it, once we obtain it, and once we live in it, we love it, and it has its own rewards.
But it's...
It's a struggle to love, to practice charity, and it's a grace from God. It's a gift from God that is given to those who work for it, who pray for it, seek it, long for it, live for it, and that's what we're supposed to do.
And yet again, we have our whole nature, our whole human nature, our whole fallen human nature working against charity, working against loving our neighbor because we are so selfish.
We seek our own self-love, what we want, our own desires, and we put them first naturally, and we have to stop that.
We have to change that, and we have to love our neighbor by going out of ourselves.
We need to be thoughtful of our neighbor. We need to be very thoughtful, considerate of our neighbor.
We have to think of our neighbor, but I think even before that, we have to get rid of those...
Those things that prevent us from loving our neighbor, and they, I think, primarily, primarily, they are our pride and our hurts that other people give to us.
The ill will we have, the feeling of dislike towards other people, this is what we have to get rid of, ill will and get rid of pride.
In order to love our neighbor, and this is sort of the beginning, because if we think of someone we don't like, you know, especially if they hurt us, if they hurt us, we have an excuse not to like them.
If they hurt us, we have an excuse not to love them, not to think good about them, not to do good for them, not to pray for them, and even to do bad things to them in revenge, to do the opposite of love.
And so that's, you see how we have to get...
We have to get rid of the ill will, and the hurts, too.
If we hold on to hurts, it hurts our pride.
Somebody hurt us, they diminished us, they mistreated us, insulted us, hurt us, and put us down, and it hurts our pride.
So humility is really needed there, too.
We have to be ready to let go of our pride, let go of the hurts that other people give to us, and there's going to be a lot of them.
We get hurt all the time, and we hurt other people all the time.
So we have to be experts in forgiving, forgiving, getting rid, getting rid of ill will.
And you do that in your mind.
You do that in your thoughts.
We do that in our thoughts.
We have to get rid of all ill will in our thoughts and replace our pride with humility.
And that's a...
That's the biggest thing.
The biggest obstacle is our pride and ill will towards our neighbor.
And that's a constant thing we have to do.
Continually get rid of ill will, bad thoughts about our neighbor, thinking of all they did to wrong me.
We've got to continually do that all the time, to the day we die, every day, throughout the day.
And another thing is passing judgment on our neighbor.
When we pass...
When we pass judgment on our neighbor, we usually pass...
You know, our Lord speaks about not judging our neighbor.
He's talking about passing bad judgment on our neighbor, considering that they have bad intentions.
They are doing things for bad reasons.
They're doing things to hurt me or to hurt other people or because they're proud or because they're wicked or because they are selfish.
And we assume bad intentions of our neighbor.
That's judgment.
That's bad judgment.
And that is sinful.
And that is very uncharitable.
And that leads to all kinds of lack of charity.
When we pass judgment on our neighbor, how do we stop that?
By thinking...
By passing good judgment on our neighbor.
Assuming good intentions.
Assuming...
You know, and if we can't even assume good intentions, then we pity them.
We feel sorry for them that they're caught up in this evil and this slavery, whatever they're in.
The bad things that they do, we pity them.
And, you know, you think of Immokalee Labagiza.
I always remember that.
You know her?
The Rwandan woman who had her most of her family killed, slaughtered in the 1980s, was it?
The 19...
Might have been the early 90s.
And over a million Rwandans were killed from the Tutsi tribe.
The Hutus were the other tribe, and they went around massacring the Tutsis with machetes.
And so they killed almost all of her family except for her brother.
And she would...
She hid herself in the bathroom with a pastor, hid her with about nine other women there.
And she kept praying the rosary all the time, praying the All-Father, but she couldn't get through the All-Father
because she couldn't forgive her murderers, those who were trying to kill her.
They were trying to find her and kill her, rape her and kill her.
And so she couldn't forgive them.
And until she kept praying, day after day, she was three months in this bathroom, this tiny bathroom,
and she finally got the grace, finally got the grace to pity her murderers, the murderers of her family.
That's the way she was able to forgive, to pity.
And it's a kind of charity, the charity to pity those who do bad things.
And isn't that what Jesus did on the cross?
Isn't that what he did?
He pitied his murderers.
He felt bad for them, and he made excuses for them, that they didn't know what they were doing.
So, you know, we have to do that.
We have to...
If we can't forgive or excuse the bad things other people do, we can pity them.
We can make excuses for them somehow, some way, or we can pray for them.
You know, otherwise we are stuck with hatred and bitterness.
And...
Remember...
Remember...
Remember...
Remember St. Maximilian, when he was in the concentration camp,
and he was around people who were, you know, his fellow Polish people who were suffering so much,
and they were full of hatred towards the Nazis.
And he would tell them, don't hate.
Hatred is barren.
Only love is fruitful.
Only love is fruitful.
We want to have always...
How do you do that in the concentration camp?
You can do it.
We can do it just like Immaculate.
They did it in her situation.
We can always do that.
And our Lord set the example for it.
For us on the cross, we have to do that.
And that's the hardest thing.
Of course, we're not always going to be stretched to that point in practicing charity,
but we have to be ready for that.
And sometimes even the little pinpricks are harder than the bigger things,
the practicing charity.
But we are called...
We are commanded to love.
Jesus gives us that commandment to love.
We don't have a choice.
We can live in bitterness and lack of love and feel that misery and that anguish and anxiety that that caused.
We can say, I just prefer that rather than making the effort to love my neighbor.
But we don't have that choice.
We don't have that option.
We have this commandment that we must make this effort to love our neighbor.
And...
Again, love is generous.
Love reaches out to our neighbor.
Love reaches out even to those who have hurt us to do good to them.
As Scripture says, we need to do good to those who have done harm to us.
We need to reach out in practicing charity.
We need to reach out in forgiveness.
Reach out in prayer.
In goodwill.
In goodwill.
Thinking well of our neighbor.
And that is a habit that we can acquire.
That we must...
That we must acquire the virtue of charity.
A habit of always thinking well of our neighbor.
And when the bad thoughts come in, then we get rid of them right away.
We have to keep doing that.
Keep pulling out those weeds of lack of charity.
Otherwise, we will be caught up in bitterness and lack of charity.
And commit sins.
All kinds of sins against charity.
Instead, we can do all kinds of good things.
Reach out and do...
Live a life of goodness.
Seeking to do good to our neighbor.
Everyone.
Everyone.
And that's love.
Love is doing good to your neighbor.
Thinking good of your neighbor.
Reaching out and to do good to them in whatever way you can.
Whatever way we have to.
Whether it be forgiveness of...
Or...
Corporal works of mercy.
Or prayer.
Or kindness.
A smile.
Whatever.
All these things.
Doing good.
Handing out.
That olive branch to your neighbor.
Doing good.
Living in goodness rather than selfishness and bitterness.
And ill will.
And lack of charity.
This is what God calls us to do.
And love is a great thing.
Love gathers...
Covers a multitude of sins.
It gathers enormous grace for us.
Enormous grace.
It makes us holy.
Love is what makes us holy.
That's what we are.
That's what holiness is.
Holiness is love.
So it's worth focusing on.
Praying for.
Living for.
Making our primary effort to practice this kind of charity.
Love.
And asking God for it over and over.
And it is a grace.
And it is something we have to pray for.
But it also is something we can obtain.
Through the Eucharist.
Eucharist which is love itself.
Jesus.
God who is love there.
The source.
The fountain.
The spring of charity and love is in the Eucharist.
We come up to the altar rail to receive love.
To receive the strength of love.
To love our neighbor.
And to do good in every way we can think of.
And to take it back to the pew.
Take it back to our homes.
Take it back into our heart.
And to grow.
Make it grow.
Through our reception of it.
Through our disposition of love.
And through our continual petition.
Petitions to Jesus for this great charity.
Because it is a great treasure.
It's like a hidden treasure.
That so many of us just walk by it.
We miss it.
It's kind of like humility too.
Humility and love are the foundations of holiness.
And they cover a multitude of sins.
They correct a multitude of sins.
They keep us from a multitude of sins.
If we have this love and charity.
You know we can make all kinds of mistakes.
And then fix them all right away.
Through love and humility.
And we have to have those virtues in it.
Otherwise we can fall into pride.
And we can get caught up in all kinds of other things.
Caught up in intellectualism.
We can get caught up in work.
And doing all kinds of other things.
And then just forget about charity.
Forget about charity.
But instead it should be the number one thing.
You know that axiom you know.
In certain things we should always be united.
And you know things of doctrine and truth.
We should always be united.
Things that are defined by the church.
We all should be united.
Those things that are uncertain.
That are discussed.
And we have freedom of opinion.
We should always give liberty to our neighbor.
To do.
To think what they want to think.
And to keep quiet.
And not to fight on uncertain things.
Uncertain matters.
But in all things practice charity.
That axiom of Saint Augustine I think.
So always everything in charity.
Everything in charity.
And then everything works out.
Love never fails.
As Saint Paul tells us.
Love never fails.
Love.
Makes everything better.
Fixes everything.
Restores everything.
Brings peace.
And brings joy and harmony.
And brings us to salvation.
So let's pray for that.
And pray for our neighbor to obtain this great virtue.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you to Jesus Christ, Father God.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.