If we really love God and pray, we will be lured into active, generous love for someone in need.

Thirty First Sunday in OT  B  2018

In the scriptures this weekend, our first reading is from Deuteronomy chapter 6, an iconic passage for the Jewish people. This passage is so important to the Jewish people that they nail it to their doors and at times even wear little containers with this passage on their foreheads. This is what Moses has to say, “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone! Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.”

The connection between the words of Moses and the Gospel from Mark is very apparent. “One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked him, "Which is the first of all the commandments?" Jesus replied, "The first is this: Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

The two great commandments are essentially connected with each other.  If we really love God and pray, we will be lured into active, generous love for someone who needs us.  The authenticity of our celebration of the Eucharist, the genuineness of the time we spend in Eucharistic adoration will be seen in the love and the service we share with one another.

I would like to share with you a bit of my recent trip to one of the poorest regions in all of Africa, the area of Mazinde Juu in Tanzania.  A necessary background to my experience is the story of a young boy who grew up in a humble family in Elmira, New York.  He was one of 14 children.  His father was a journalist for the Elmira, Gazette.  The love of God was deep in the heart of this young man, and he had a desire to become a priest, a Benedictine priest.  His name is Damien Milliken.  He is now Father Damien and has spent the last 57 years of his life as a priest in Africa, in Mazinde Juu in Tanzania.

He has started a number of schools in Tanzania to give young girls an educational and spiritual opportunity that they would not otherwise have.  From October 8^th to the 20^th, I and five other parishioners from St. Joseph’s had the opportunity of spending time with Father Damien, the religious sisters of Usambara who staffed St. Mary’s School, and a I,000 high schools girls at St. Mary’s.  This school is a residential school where the girls live here in the academic year, and the school is situated on the side of the mountain surrounded by significant poverty in this area of Tanzania.

Try to imagine at 6:00 am each and every morning, 1,000 high schools at Mass singing and praying in a fashion so very beautifully.  For the purpose of comparsion, try to imagine everyone here in our Church singing the opening hymn with full voice and then multiply that by more than three times and you will get a sense of the angelic voices of these girls.  The only musical instrument in the Church was a young girl in the choir loft beating some drums with all her heart.  Even our Christmas Eve liturgies would be challenged to match for the spiritual vibrancy of the weekday Mass at St. Mary’s School.

More than that, these girls were present at the liturgy and throughout the school day with much joy in their hearts and so thankful for the opportunity they have to learn and grow and to be together.  My heart was so touched by the way these girls loved God and loved one another.

I tell you all this as an inspiring example of how this young boy from Elmira, New York lived out his love of God.  Father Damien is now in his 80’s still providing incredible leadership and love and prayer for many, many Tanzanians who are now given opportunities for academic and spiritual growth flowing from a young boy’s desire to show his love for God.

In the Gospel, Jesus tells us about the way of love in his words and in his life.  Father Damien has shown me and so many others that his love of God led him to love and serve the poor on a humble mountainside in Tanzania.

How do I and how do you show our love of God in the day to day moments of our lives?  Perhaps for us, it is the best of times and in the worst of times; it is the season but it can also be the season of darkness.  Isn’t it true we all have to confess at times that when we need God, we spend time with God.  But then when apparently we don’t need God, we can shelf Him.  Sometimes, God can be likened to one of the applications on our iPhone to open and shut at will.

In this liturgy, we humbly ask for the grace to experience God in our lives not as an application on the iPhone but rather to experience God as our very operating system by which everything else in our lives draws its existence and meaning.

In the dismissal rite of the Mass, the priest says:  Go in peace glorifying God by our lives.  We respond:  Thanks be to God.  We also need to respond by witnessing to our love of God in all the ways we love and service of one another.

Our Eucharistic spirituality is lived out in our home, in our neighborhood, in our work place, in our schools and in all of life.  Do we treat with love and respect the incidental people of our lives – the people we meet at Wegman’s, or on the street as we are driving, or the people in front of us in a waiting line?  As we prepare to vote this Tuesday, what values motivate us in the people we choose to elect to be our government leaders?  As members of the faith community of the Church of the Holy Spirt, are we a parish community that is identified by our love and service to people in need.  What needs still for us to us to be a faith community that shows our love of God in the way that we love one another?

Father Damien went from Elmira, New York to the eastern rural region of Tanzania in his witnessing to God’s love in his life.  May we too in the neighborhoods of Penfield and Webster witness to the love of God in the ways we serve the needs of one another.

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