Larger In Our Love

Dear Friend,

In this Sunday’s Gospel Jesus issues a challenge whose dimensions are uncomfortable to say the least. His word comes to us in our present circumstance, as our nation and church are upended by anger, frustration, resentment, and disease. At a time when we might be tempted to pull back and wish for a timeout, Jesus invites us to be larger in our love.

Our love, Jesus tells us, must now encompass not just our fathers, mothers, sons and/or daughters (hard enough as it is); in his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus has created a new family. He directs toward this larger circle. According to Pope Francis, this could mean the roughly 70 million individuals wandering the earth today as “little ones” displaced from their homes as a result of poverty, violence, and various other catastrophes. We might ask, who are the “little ones” of Santa Barbara?

This is the call of our Baptism. The surging waters of fear powered by racism, nationalism, economic instability and loss, and the pandemic, together form the “Red Sea”, which the waters of our baptism are meant to symbolize. Jesus Christ brings us out of those destructive waters. His poverty and humility are the great signs and gifts of love. He is “the way” toward liberation and a new relationship with the human family and all of creation.

The words of journalists, politicians, bishops, theologians, poets, and scientists – important as they are – cannot and will not ultimately bind us together or free us as a human family. Only the incarnate word of God, Jesus Christ, alive in our hearts, in the scripture, and in the voices of the poor can empower us to love. When the “woman of influence” in the first reading welcomed that prophetic, unsettling word into her heart and home, her family, quite unexpectedly, got larger. God wants the same for us. ]

Gratefully,

Fr. Dan ofm Pastor