Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Earlier this last week Jerry came to tell me goodbye and I asked him, “ Do you know how much I love you?”  He answered, “ Probably not.”  In an instant, in the deep whispering of the heart, I heard the same question. “ Do you know how much I love you?”  My answer,“ Probably not.”

The number of times “ love” is used in the bible depends on the translation.  The NRSV lists the most at 583. The whole of Sacred Scripture points to and reveals God’s Love.  Much of this last week’s daily readings, were sections of scripture from the Sermon on the Mount, teachings centered on love and mercy.  This is the core of Matthew’s gospel; that God is a God of mercy and this mercy is made real in Love. And what we hear in today’s gospel is that what we “ hear whispered” by the Lord in our hearts is to be “ proclaimed on the housetops.”

A few years ago I was given a prayer that speaks profoundly to this.  Attributed to Fr. Pedro Arrupe, SJ:

Nothing is more practical than

finding God, than

falling in Love

in a quite absolute, final way.

What you are in love with,

what seizes your imagination, will affect

everything.

It will decide

what will get you out of bed in the morning,

what you will do with your evenings,

how you spend your weekends,

what you read, whom you know,

what breaks your heart,

and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.

Fall in Love, stay in love,

And it will decide everything.

We see so little visible Love in the world especially in these uncertain times.  The Lord though has made us a promise and his Word is true. “ Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.” But if we deny him he will deny us. This is asking all of us the same question, “ Do you know how much I love you?”