“This Is the Hour for Love” – A Call from Christ and His Church

Brothers and sisters, this is the hour for love! – Pope Leo XIV

Fr. John concluded his bulletin article last Sunday with his own iteration of one of my favorite quotes from a Pope, St. Pope John XXIII.

“Well, God it is your Church, take care of it, I’m going fishing.” – Fr. John.

I hope God – and me to a much lesser extent – have done a decent job of taking care of the parish in Fr. John’s absence, and I hope that he caught some fish! (You’ll have to ask him this weekend).

As I mentioned in my homily last weekend, I am gone this weekend traveling up north to Superior for the celebration of my younger sister’s wedding at the Cathedral of Christ the King, our Diocesan Cathedral. I am always thrilled whenever I can approach the altar in this beautiful 98-year-old structure. It is the church where four generations of my family has worshipped, where I received all three sacraments of initiation, and it is where I was ordained a priest and celebrated the Mass for the first time as a priest.

I am especially grateful for this day celebrating with my sister Annie, her fiancée Jacob, and to see so many family members and friends who have supported my family in our journey of faith. I know that throughout the weekend, the words “I love you” will be spoken many times. They are powerful words. They are words which have meaning. They are words that we speak to each other. And they are words that God speaks to us.

In our Gospel reading for this Sunday we hear Jesus tell his disciples that whoever loves him will keep his word and whoever does not love him will not keep his words. One way to understand this keeping of the word, or words, of Jesus is through the lens of unity. Love, we know, can lead us to unity and conversely, hatred can lead us to division.

This relationship of love and unity seems like a spiritual topic that we are going to hear about often from our new Holy Father, Leo. I quoted above a line from his homily last Sunday during the inauguration Mass that he celebrated in St. Peter’s Square. It is a beautiful homily if you get the chance to read the English translation. In it, Pope Leo reflects on love and unity as “the two dimensions of the mission entrusted to Peter by Jesus.” It is not that the Pope has authority unto himself, but rather that by his witness of self-sacrificing love he points us to the true authority on earth which is the love of Christ. 

Whether it be the witness of unity and love that we see at a wedding or in the simple sacrifices that we can make every day, may we heed the call of Christ to lovingly keep his word and by doing that may we be blessed in hauling to shore a great catch of fish.

Gracias a Dios.