Being In Love

We can find delight in the mess that defines children. Our hearts swell with love when we see the trust of a child who is suspended in doubt and is waiting for us to rescue him because he knows that we will understand what is happening, even if he does not.

That is why, before God, we must be like children, trusting in His unfailing love and protection. We come to many points in our lives where we just don’t understand. Then what? We must “Wait patiently for the Lord. Be strong, and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the Lord.”

This was Deacon Michael’s last sermon. It is entirely fitting that it would be about the perfect, simple love that he was soon to encounter when he went to be with the source of all love, Jesus.

Written by Laura Weston, widow of Deacon Michael

IF YOU LIKE, READ ALONG AS YOU LISTEN:

You know one thing, and I've said this often enough, maybe you've seen me around children, you know I love children.

Last night... my wife's gone so I am just bored out of my mind... so I decided to invite my grandchildren out to eat some ice cream.

One of my grandchildren is four years old. My grandson is four years old. He is a character. He's simply a character... I mean he is what he is... and I made the mistake of buying him a chocolate ice cream cone.

So when I took him back to the bathroom basically to wash his entire body off, his shirt is covered with chocolate and everything, and all there is is this wonderful smile.

I'm with my grandpa. I've just had a chocolate ice cream cone.

Life is good!

And in a very real sense, the wonder of our faith as so wonderfully expressed by St. Therese is the simplicity of our faith. And you know... I mean I love St. Jerome, the crotchety old man. I like St. Augustine. Oh, Thomas Aquinas is just wonderful. These guys who can write a sentence and you can spend an hour trying to figure out what they meant by that one sentence because there's such incredible depth to it.

St. Therese basically, and I'm going to read you a quote...

"...sometimes when I read spiritual treatises in which perfection is shown with a thousand obstacles, surrounded by a crowd of illusions, my poor little mind quickly tires. I close the learned book which is breaking my head and drying up my heart, and I take up Holy Scripture, then it all seems to be luminous to me. A single word uncovers for my soul infinite horizons. Perfection seems simple. I see that it is enough to recognize one's nothingness and to abandon oneself like a child into God's arms, leaving to great souls, to great minds, the beautiful books I cannot understand. I rejoice to be little because only children, and those who are like them, will be admitted to the heavenly banquet."

That is just beautiful!

I love that... and I'm not blessed with that. I wish I had that. My mind always want to go somewhere.

But it also comes down to an ultimately simple, but so incredibly all-encompassing word... love.

Terese of Lisieaux, Terese the Little Flower, a very young woman when she died, encompassed it with love.

The love between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The love of God for us. The love of Jesus for us. The love that we are called to have for God. The love that we are called to have for neighbor, ultimately is the transformative effect of a believing in Our Lord Jesus Christ. Ultimately it comes down to: you cannot understand the totality of the wonder of Christ without being like a child.

Because if you come to Jesus and say, "I am going to understand everything about Jesus. I am going to read The City of God. I am going to read Summa Theologica. I am going to listen to all of the readings of Robert Bellarmine. I'm going to read all of the doctors of the Church. I am going to read all of the writings of Pope Benedict, um, Joseph Ratzinger before he was the Pope. I'm going to read them and I'm going to understand them, and when I've finished...

I'm going to be able to confuse you beyond comprehension.

I'm not going to have the ability to explain to you what it means to be a follower of Christ.

Yet, if we allow ourselves to be like my grandson yesterday... chocolate ice cream in an ice cream cone, with my siblings, my daddy, and my grandfather, and my grandfather's cleaning me off, and I'm a total mess and no one is yelling at me for being a total mess... I'm loved!

That's the reality of our existence. Look at ourselves. The reality is... we are loved. We are loved by God. We are loved by Jesus Christ, and everything flows from that.

We are called to love God and to love neighbor. Is there anything more simple and all-encompassing? And this is what Terese of Lisieaux expressed so beautifully and why John Paul II made her a doctor of the Church.

Love.

Think of all the ramifications. But ultimately it comes down to a little four year old Robert being in love... with his world... with his parents... with his friends. And that unquestioned love, that wonderful love, that wonderful feeling, is what God brings to us through Our Lord Jesus Christ.

October 1, 2019 2