The Flowering of Love

Dear Friend,

My weekly route to the clothesline out back takes me past a little rose bush Father Franklin has been faithfully tending over the last several months. When I walked by it last week, we’d had a light rain overnight, so what caught my eye were three fresh blossoms smiling up at me like faces of kids just out of a swimming pool. I put down my load to give them a closer look.

In this Sunday’s second reading, St. Paul is pausing too. He’s admiring his budding community of disciples in Thessalonica. They’ve been well planted. “From you the word of the Lord has sounded forth,” he writes, “…in every place your faith in God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say anything…” Please note: leaving a guy like St. Paul with nothing left to say is quite an accomplishment.  

Notable as well, the blossoming of the Thessalonian community results from an unlikely mixture of experiences - a soil, if you will – as Paul describes the faithful there “receiving the word in affliction” and “with joy from the Holy Spirit [italics added].” He goes on to say that in this way the community mirrors his own experience and, more importantly, that of the Lord, of whom they have become “imitators.”

With Jesus, as with every community of his disciples, including St. Barbara parish, the flowering of love comes at a cost - affliction and joy are both involved. Gospel love demands the full-on response to affliction, including especially that of the migrant and the poor. The new garden opened to us by the resurrection of Jesus Christ beckons us to dig in like our ancestors in Thessalonica. It is a work of beauty and healing. It brings the joy of being truly alive.

Gratefully,

Father Dan ofm

Pastor