Let's talk about love

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Fr. Jim Mayzik, SJ, offers a homily for the 30th Sunday of Ordinary Time. Recorded at Church of the Epiphany

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My sisters and brothers the Lord be with you. Reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew glory be to the Lord. When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees they gathered together and one of them Skylar of the law tested him by asking teacher which commandment in the law is the greater. Jesus said to him. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul. And with all your mind. This is the greatest in the first commandment. The second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

The whole law and the prophets depend on these two Commandments.

the gospel of the Lord praise to you Lord, Jesus Christ

So I want to talk about love let's let's talk about love, you know, love love love.

One October morning very early. I took a walk to the city the streets were quiet. They were hardly traffic. It was little traffic in fewer people and I wondered where everyone was.

A block or so away. I spotted a man alone on the sidewalk speaking sternly to a child. I could not see. He was clearly upset and was correcting some misbehavior. As I got closer I realized that the child was a small dog and the man was pointing at him and telling him that he was not obeying. You know better than that I've told you over and over again. You must obey me. He said as a little dog looked up at him with these really big eye. The man who picked them up and gave him a little whack on his behind and then placed him back on the ground parently the dog was attempting to cross the street without the warning of his owner. So the man look both ways saw that the street was empty of traffic and then shouted.

And the little dog instantly ran across the street to the other side turning then to wait for his master AC followed in the crosswalk. Good, that was better. He said to the dog and the dog and the man I could tell smiled at one another. They turn to walk in another Direction and I walked on smiling at what I had just observed touched by the obvious love between dog and man. I was actually kind of thrill.

Well, if you want to play later, I came across a very long line of people. So I'm carrying assorted back some wrapped in dirty blankets all looking very poor. They were waiting for soup and sandwiches to be distributed from an open tent. at the beginning of the line behind the folding table. There was an older woman who was ladling out soup. I stopped for a moment just to kind of take in the whole scene. But I couldn't take my eyes off of her all covered from hands to head. Even beneath her mask, I could tell she had a beautiful smile and you know how I could tell because her skin around her eyes was crinkling as she served up the soup and I sent the kindness emanating from her pulling the mall in pulling me in as I stood there in the line began to move. And I watches her eyes went up to each one with a word or two and then I knew that smile underneath that mask and I wondered how many of them were being fed. Not just by the food but by that hidden smile.

I walked on and I passed a couple. Ringling away in some kind of October love They were young maybe in their twenties and their math bases were nose-to-nose Whispering something private and affectionate.

At a glance I could see the thrill and their faces flushed with love and it gave me a little rush.

Play down the street two guys were working on a garbage truck emptying the trash from those cans that are on every street corner of Manhattan. They have the routine down drive the truck a few feet. Stop jumping off grab the trash can dump it in the back and then return to the corner. Well, as I was watching this a little boy and his grandmother assumed we're waiting for the light one of the guys got into the cab to grab something and jumped out again. He went over to the grandma and put a beautiful yellow rose in her hand. Smiled and then turned away. At first the grandmother was startled. But then her smile. Brighten, and those eyes follow the truck as it drove away the guy on the back held on and waved at her and I thought in New York. This is why.

There's something about love, you know. How it makes you feel how it makes the whole world around you feel? When you're deep in love is a kind of a kind of wild uncertainty. Sometimes deliberately abandoned.

Things are put in a completely different perspective when you were in love and you you put aside the ordinary ways that routine order when you're in love you take giant risk. You cancel appointments? Buy extravagantly you spend hours and hours making something. You Circle the block a million times. You travel way way out of your way. You stand sometimes on A Street behind a table of sandwiches. You talk to tiny little dogs with big eyes. You give Yellow Rose Instagram eyes when you're in love. The Beloved is all that matters. Where matters above all else when you're in love the rules are not quite the same. Sometimes you throw the rolls out altogether and you subsume them in the one rule that guides all the rest.

You know, the Jews had 613 rules that you were supposed to follow.

The Catholic catechism is a 846 pages in his paperback edition.

What is the greatest rule of Life what's the most important lesson or Commandment that we should follow how shall we live? Well said Jesus. how about

Follow the rule of live by the rule of love and the kind of love that maybe is Godly. The way that we are loved by God. And loved by God. By loving God love God. by loving like God Love everything like God your dog your mate your children. the Golden Leaves and the dying trees the blanketed forgotten ones on the streets of the city Grandma's on street corners love everything everything like God. And you know what else?

Love yourself. Love everything like God including your self.

Well, I was watching that saintly woman behind the soup table. She looked over at me for a moment. I 2 I I could tell she was. Smiling at me and so I nodded. all at once I knew that I was no different from the women and men on that line. That I needed to be fed from the table of love just as much as they did. And maybe sometimes that's what we need to start first. How do you love the world?

If you don't really love yourself.

There was an ad on the building right next to the food line. It was advertising clothing on beautiful models in over the models wear the words. You're gorgeous. You're gorgeous.

exactly

exactly the problem too. I looked over at the line being served their meals and I whispered myself. You are gorgeous.

We all are gorgeous.

The rules that were meant to follow is the rule that brings a flush to the face and a thrill to the heart sometimes. It also brings a great deal of pain.

Take a look at what kind of pain it can bring?

But always the rule of love that he followed. Brings with it undeniable unbelievable. unrelievable fulfillment and join

in the midst of a beautiful God given golden Autumn. I heard you. to know and live the rule of love. And to practice it. Upon the Gilded world that is all around each and every one of us.

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