Father Thomas Welbers' Homily

Have you ever been “in love”? Falling in love is a common experience of humankind, both men and women, and even of older children as they begin to experience the world around them, and discover other people in relation to themselves. Even religiously committed celibates, like myself, at some point in our lives, discover ourselves in love with someone, and have to deal with it. Usually, helped by someone older and wiser and more mature in the ways of the spirit, we deal with it in a healthy and non-destructive way, a way that may sometimes be painful but ultimately life-giving to all involved.

The experience of being in love is pretty much universal and undeniable. Even the most curmudgeonly person you know, the one who seems incapable of loving even himself or herself, probably has some experience of being “in love” somewhere in his or her distant past.

But, is being “in love” the same thing as loving? What we all know, sometimes from hard experience, is that “falling in love” alone is not enough for making and successfully living a lifelong commitment to love another person “until death do us part.” While falling in love, and all its accompanying emotions and attractions, may be an important beginning to a lifelong commitment to love “for better, for worse, in sickness and in health until death,” being “in love” simply isn’t enough in itself. One must move beyond it. What is beyond it?

Similarly, when we hear the commandment “to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul and with all our mind,” more is needed than just a feeling, however strong it may be. Often our religious experience begins with a feeling of being overwhelmed by love of God that is similar to the human experience of being in love. Sometimes we may feel, like lovers do, that we are carried aloft towards God on a great wave of love. That’s a wonderful feeling, and many of us have religious experiences like that from time to time. It may be in seeing a sunset or a scene of great natural beauty. It may be experiencing the goodness of a friend and perceiving God behind that experience. It may be during adoration of the Blessed Sacrament or a moment of shared prayer in the liturgy. It may be in discovering an unexpected insight, or receiving a surprise gift. Whatever the occasion may be, we know that God is there, and it is wonderful.

But, like human falling in love, that feeling of divine love lifting us up doesn’t last. Like with human love, in order to last something more is needed. What is beyond this experience? What more is needed?

That “something more” involves a coming out of our own selves, even our own wonderful feelings, and concentrating on the other as the other is in himself or herself, not merely as we perceive or would like them to be. That something more is to see the other less as an object that gives us good feelings and more as a mystery inviting our exploration, our learning, our getting to know the other. The key, the secret behind truly loving another person, and loving God as we know we must, is that we cannot love what we don’t know.

Thus the commandment to love God above all things depends on our knowing who and what God is. And how can we know God? Think about it. There is nothing you or I can do to know God as God truly is, unless God has first made himself present to us, unless God has invited us to know him, to explore the mystery that he is. If God hasn’t taken the initiative to reveal himself first, before we can do anything at all, then what we think we know and love is a mere figment of our imagination.

The Whole Community Catechesis events this coming week, which you have read about in the bulletin and you see advertised just about everywhere you turn here at OLA, -- these events begin by exploring how this wonderful God who makes us his own and calls us to love him – how this God invites us to know him.

This is something for the whole family, because children, young people, and adults will all be learning at their own level. And we will not be learning by listening to a lecture, no matter how exciting and engaging the lecture may be (like the ones I give, for example). Instead, we will be learning together, asking questions, exploring the footprints of God in the Bible and in our history and in our own lives, and learning from one another’s insights as well as from God’s Word and the heritage of our faith. And we will pray what we learn, asking God to lead us deeper into knowledge and love of him.

We have heard the commandment to love God above all things, as well as our neighbor as ourselves. To love truly we must know the other person deeply. God has opened himself up for us to get to know him. I’d like to invite you to join me and Elena Cardeña, our parish Director of Faith Formation, and other members of our parish ministry team in unveiling the footprints of God. As you can see in the bulletin and the signs around the parish, there will be three sessions this week at different times on different days. At least one of them must be convenient for you. Come as you are. Come with your questions even your doubts. But please come.

© 2005 Thomas Welbers