The Gift of Adoption

 Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
    I enjoy giving gifts.  I try really hard to give good gifts, but I don’t always succeed in finding gifts that others truly want.  But there’s something about giving people something that makes me happy, especially for my close friends and family.  Sometimes people will say, “You shouldn’t have!” as a way of expressing their thanks for the gift.  Other times, they’re not the biggest fan of the gift, and mean, “You really shouldn’t have gotten me a gift!”  
    While I like providing for people, especially things that they really want but wouldn’t get for themselves, even things that they need, there’s always the danger that, in giving a gift, it’s really a quid pro quo, a this for that.  I know that sometimes friends have wondered if I get them gifts as a way to try to bribe them to stay my friends, as if giving the gift would earn their friendship.
    I thought about this when reading over the second reading from the epistle of St. John.  John writes, “See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God.  And so we are.”  God has given us a great gift: to be called and truly to be His children, sons and daughters in the Son of God.  That is a gift that we truly need, even if sometimes we don’t recognize that we need it.  But it is a gift; it cannot be earned.
    Still, sometimes I, and perhaps you, as well, try to earn that gift.  We think that if we just did enough good things, or avoided particular sins, or lived in this heroic way, that God would be happy with us and would make us His children based upon the gifts that we have given Him.  As Catholics, it’s very easy to fall into this trap that God only loves us if we do what He wants, that our adoption as His children is somehow based upon what we do.  
    But that is a lie that the enemy tells us, a lie which distracts us from the true love of the Father.  That love of the Father is not based upon what we do, but is based upon the fact that we are His creation, and His creation has been raised to a new dignity, not based upon what we have done, but what Christ has done for us.  In baptism, we become little christs, little anointed ones, and God sees the imprint of His Son, Jesus, in us.  That has nothing to do with how holy we are, because, at the time just before we are baptized, we are not holy; we are at enmity with God.  It has everything to do with God being Love, and the love that God has for His Son, and all those who are joined to His Son through baptism.  
    How much do we try to earn the love of the Father through trying to be perfect, and then get frustrated when it doesn’t work out, when we’re not perfect, or even as holy as we desire to be!  But it’s putting the cart in front of the horse.  Living the commandments is only possible through the love that we receive from the Father.  Keeping the commandments is important; our life is supposed to reflect the love of the Father that has been poured into our hearts.  But is the result, not the pre-requisite, of the love of God.

    And as we celebrate the Holy Family, and try to be holy families ourselves, we are called to model that same love and that same approach to love with our families that we have with our heavenly Father.  We love the members of our family, not because of something they have done for us, but simply because they are ours.  We hope that they live a good life, and we try to support each other in being holy, in following the commandments to love God and neighbor as Christ and the Church teaches us.  We want them to be good representatives of our name and our family.  But that comes as a result of our love for them, not as the pre-requisite of our love for them.  
    We see this especially with babies.  Babies don’t really do anything for the family; they pretty much just take from the family.  They cry whenever they need something; they demand food whenever they want it; they poop and spit-up on a regular basis; they never seem to sleep when you want (or need) them to.  And yet, how much love is showered upon babies, even before they’re born!  You can’t help but love a baby.  And that is how much God loves us, and infinitely more!  
    We are, no matter how old we are, the babies of the Holy Family.  God the Father loves us infinitely, even though we cry a lot, and demand a lot, and often soil our souls on a regular basis.  We really do nothing for God in the grand scheme of things.  But God the Father loves us.  And because we are loved by God the Father, we are also loved by God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.  And because Mary is the Mother of God, she loves what He loves, and so she loves us with her motherly love.  And because St. Joseph cares for Mary and her child, Jesus, he also cares for us, who are her children, too, given to Mary at the foot of the cross by Jesus.  Again, it is not based upon what we can do for Mary and Joseph, and even more so is not based upon what we can do for the Holy Trinity.  But the love is there, and is given freely as a gift.
    “Beloved: See what love the Father has bestowed upon us that we may be called the children of God.”  Not because of what we give God.  Not because we could ever earn His love.  Simply because, in Christ, as a gift freely given, we are adopted sons and daughters of God.  “And so we are.”

All of Me

Fourth Sunday of Easter

            As Americans, we tend to be very practical people.  After a salesman has told us all the benefits of their new product, all the great things it will do for us, the wonderful way that it will compliment our lifestyle, whatever the product may be, it always comes down to one simple question: how much?

            In today’s first reading, we hear St. Peter speak on behalf of the other Apostles, and proclaim, “‘Let the whole house of Israel know for certain that God has made both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.’”  Then the reading skips ahead of the main body of his argument, 22 verses, in fact, and gets to the response of the Jews who were hearing him: “‘What are we to do, my brothers?’”  Apparently, the Jews who were hearing St. Peter were practical, too.  They wanted to know what they had to do to be saved.

            Some 2,000 years later, we’re still asking the same question: what do I really have to do?  What’s it cost me?  The answer is quite simple: nothing…and everything.

            Salvation costs us nothing because it is the free gift of God, the gift given to us by Jesus, Lord and Christ, the Greek way of expressing the Hebrew understanding of God and Messiah, at Easter.  This Jesus whom we crucified, to paraphrase St. Peter from the first reading, has, in turn, given us salvation.  And to continue to St. Peter’s words from the second reading, by Jesus’ wounds we are healed.  Even though we have wondered away like sheep, Jesus Christ has brought us back to Himself because He is our shepherd and the guardian of our souls.  Even though we freely chose sin, individual acts and lifestyles that are contrary to Divine Will, natural law, and reason, to use St. Thomas’ definition of sin, acts and lifestyles which draw us away from the eternal destiny of our souls to be in heaven with God, Jesus rescued us from sin and death so that, following His example, we could be happy with Jesus forever in heaven, the whole reason for our being.  And rather than having us pay the cost, Jesus paid the price for our sins with His blood.  We are free to say yes to the great gift of salvation offered to us by Christ.

Sheep grazing in Israel

            And yet, salvation costs us everything.  Because, as Jesus tells us today in the Gospel, He is the gate for the sheep, and anyone who tries to enter by any other means is a thief and a robber, who come only to steal, slaughter, and destroy.  But Jesus, the Good Shepherd, came so that we might have life, and have it more abundantly.  But to come through Jesus the Sheepgate means that we try to get in through no other means.  That we can only go through Him.  And Jesus doesn’t just want one hour from us every week.  He doesn’t just want the times that we’re at home before a meal praying.  He wants us all.  He wants our love, our attention, our actions.  He wants us when we’re children, when we’re teens, when we’re adults, and when we’re seniors.  He wants our friendships, our relationships, the totality of who we are as persons.  He wants our work and He wants our vacations.  He wants our health and our sickness.  All of it, Jesus tells us, must go through Him.  And if it cannot go through Him, then it is only stealing from us, slaughtering us, destroying us.

            For our God is a loving God, yes, but as we hear so many times from the Old Testament, our God is also a jealous God.  He does not want us flirting with sin, in any of its forms.  He wants all of our love and affection to be directed to Him.  God is jealous for us because He knows that the only way that we can truly be happy is by going through Him and uniting everything to him. 

            In our times there are so many temptations to leave God outside and to try to find happiness and joy through other gates.  We see and hear about many prominent Catholics who have not given everything to Jesus, but who have tried to separate aspects of their life and get them in by another route.  Too many prominent Catholics or Catholics we know personally will say or tell us by their actions that when it comes to marriage and the relationships therein, the Church, the Body of Christ, has no authority.  “It’s my body, and I’ll do as I please.”  Too many Catholics consider their first allegiance the Church when they enter the pew, but when they enter the polling place or the Legislative chambers that allegiance disappears.  Now, let me be clear, the Church endorses no candidate and no party.  But, we do promote the Gospel and ask Catholics to vote for those, according to a properly-formed conscience, who can best bring about the teachings of the Gospel, the teachings which bring us life, true liberty, and true happiness, especially for those who are marginalized in our society: infants in the womb, the poor, the elderly, and so many others, as well as Catholic Legislators to promote those Gospel values in their work of forming laws for the State and the country.

            We are all of us practical people.  We want to know the cost of salvation.  It is nothing and everything.  It is a free gift, offered to us in Christ that gives us true joy and true freedom.  It is a gift which, to accept it, means that we are constantly working at making sure that all of who we are passes through Christ, the Sheepgate.  If it cannot pass through Him, it will not bring joy or freedom, but sorrow and slavery.  Christ wants all of us.  Bishop Mengeling is well-known for using older songs in his homilies and talks, and, while I won’t sing the song, I think that our desire, our prayer could be expressed in the opening words of the oldie, but goodie, “All of Me.”  Because we should be saying to Christ, “All of me, why not take all of me?  Can’t you see I’m no good without you.”  Or, to use an even older version, we can use the words of St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Suscipe prayer:

                                                

                                                Receive, O Lord, all my liberty.

                                                Take my memory, my understanding, and my entire will.

                                                Whatsoever I have or posses Thou hast bestowed upon me;

                                                I give it all back to Thee

                                                and surrender it wholly to be governed by Thy Will.

                                                Give me love for Thee alone along with Thy grace,

                                                and I am rich enough and ask for nothing more.