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| "Religion," by Charles Sprague Pearce. Public Domain. |
For Thursday of the
Ninth Week of Ordinary Time
Since
Christ names SOUL, MIND
and STRENGTH as tools of LOVE
it is clear he means LOVE
is not merely a FEELING.
Rather: soul,
mind, and strength can LOVE
whether FEELINGS go with or against
them.
Christ
upholds that love gives its all in believing, wanting, thanking and obeying
God.
Love
follows God by doing what is truly good for its neighbor.
To love your neighbor as yourself calls for
faithfulness to what is good and right, whether feelings come or go, wax or
wane, help or hinder.
If I am NOT mindful to seek and do the right and the
good, then I leave all my feelings to flutter in the unforeseeable tides of my
own lack of worthy goals.
Then
sadness, anger, fear and joy will shove each other around inside me, with none of
them truly healthy.
Even
without God’s word, that is, even without the Bible, men and women over untold
ages have watched and learned that doing the right and the good can open a
better home for feelings— joy among them— to live well and grow well.
The scribe
who spoke to Christ in today’s Gospel had begun to move knowingly towards the
greatest such home, the one Christ called the Kingdom of God.
You are not
far from the Kingdom of God.
On Good
Friday, at the cost of his whole being, Christ did the right and the good for
his Father and his neighbor.
He loved
them all at the cost of his whole soul, whole mind and whole
strength.
Despite
his feelings!
Despite
sorrow and loathing so great they sweated and bled out of his skin!
Forgetful
of self, mindful of God and neighbor, LOVE-IN-PERSON
in flesh and blood stopped at nothing to build the only home where joy could
rise from the dead and be alive forever.
In his
flesh and blood we eat and drink his soul, his mind and his strength, so that
we might know and choose to love as he loves, and so come to untold everlasting
joy with him in his Kingdom.
Turn.
Love. Repeat.
