Come a little closer

Oftentimes, I ask myself: How does God want to shape our lives? How deeply does He desire to draw us closer to Himself? And how does He reveal to us even our deepest faults, not to condemn us or shame us, but to transform us? And the more I think about it, the more I realize that God does not reveal our faults to us simply to make us feel bad about ourselves. He reveals them because He loves us too much to leave us where we are. It is the difference between being corrected by someone who simply wants to point out what is wrong with you and being corrected by a loving Father who wants to teach His child how to walk. A good father teaches his children how to speak, how to walk, how to behave, how to treat others, and eventually how to become responsible adults. God does the same thing with us spiritually. Sometimes He has to show us things about ourselves that we would rather not see. He shows us our pride, our selfishness, our impatience, our resentment, our wounds, and even the ways we have failed to love. But He does not show us these things to condemn us. He shows them to us because He wants to heal them. That is something I think we can easily miss when we read the Scriptures.

I think about that moment when the scribe approaches Jesus and asks Him about the greatest commandment. The question was not necessarily coming from a sincere desire to grow closer to God. He was testing Jesus. He wanted to see whether Jesus knew the Law and whether He could answer according to the understanding of the teachers of His time. The scribes and Pharisees were accustomed to discussing the Law at a very sophisticated level. They knew the commandments. They knew the interpretations. They knew the debates surrounding the Mosaic Law. But Jesus does something completely different. He doesn't get trapped in the argument. He doesn't try to impress them with His knowledge. Instead, He goes straight to the heart. He tells them that the greatest commandment is to love God with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, and all our strength. And then He connects that commandment to another one: to love our neighbor as ourselves. And that connection is incredibly profound. Because Jesus is telling us that our relationship with God cannot be separated from the way we treat other people. We cannot say that we love God while refusing to love the person standing right in front of us. We cannot claim to love Christ while holding onto hatred, contempt, bitterness, or indifference toward our neighbor. And Jesus understands something about us that we sometimes don't want to admit: we already know how to love ourselves. Even when we are humble, there is still something within us that wants to protect ourselves, feed ourselves, defend ourselves, comfort ourselves, and make sure that our own needs are met.

Jesus takes that very human reality and turns it into a spiritual lesson. He essentially tells us, Take the same concern you have for yourself and learn to extend it to someone else. The patience you want when you make a mistake, give that patience to somebody else. The forgiveness you hope someone will give you, give that forgiveness to somebody else. The mercy you want when you fail, give mercy to somebody else. The second chance you want when you fall, give somebody else a second chance. And the dignity you want others to recognize in you, recognize that dignity in another person. This is where I think the commandment becomes much deeper than simply, "Be nice to people." Jesus is asking us to learn the heart of God. Because God does not love us according to our worthiness. He loves us according to who He is. That is what makes His mercy so extraordinary. God knows everything about us. He knows the things we are proud of, but He also knows the things we hide. He knows our failures, our weaknesses, our sins, our fears, and the moments when we have chosen badly. And yet He continues to say, Come back! Come follow me!  That is the beauty of the Gospel. God doesn't wait for us to become perfect before He loves us. He loves us while we are still becoming. He meets us in the middle of the mess. As Bishop Barron puts it, Jesus enters the muddy waters of our sinfulness. He finds us when we are lost, speaks to us when we've stopped listening, reaches toward us when we've convinced ourselves we're too far gone to return. Sometimes, I think God teaches us about His own love by putting people in our path whom the world has already given up on. That happened to me today. 

I was dropping off some donations at a place where I regularly bring things. Many of the brothers there have struggled with addiction and have experienced some very difficult circumstances in their lives. Some have made choices that brought tremendous chaos into their lives. And yet every time I go there, I notice something that touches me. I see their faces when they receive something. Sometimes it is something very simple. Sometimes it is something that I didn't even buy myself. Someone gave it to me, and I am simply passing it along. But when I see their happiness, something happens inside of me. I become happy too. And I have to ask myself, Who is really giving to whom? I might walk in thinking, "I'm here to help somebody." But I walk away realizing that I have been helped. I may think I am bringing them something they need, but God gives me something I need even more. Joy!!! And not just ordinary joy, real happiness. A deeper kind of joy that comes from seeing another human being receive something with gratitude. It reminds me of the spiritual wisdom of St. Augustine; that when we give out of love, we discover that God has a way of giving back to us something far greater. And I think that is one of the great mysteries of Christ charity.  We think we are giving something away. But God is actually using the gift to transform the person who gives it. I give a little, and God teaches me to love a little more. I show mercy, and God softens my heart. I serve someone, and God reminds me that I am also His servant. I give something to someone who has very little, and somehow I leave feeling like I received much more than I gave. Perhaps that is exactly what Jesus meant when He told us to love our neighbor as ourselves. Because love has a strange way of multiplying. You don't lose love by giving it away. You make room for more.

 The world often teaches us to ask, What am I going to get? What's in it for me? What do I deserve? But the Gospel asks a different question: What can I give? Whom can I love? Who needs mercy today? Who needs somebody to remind them that they have not been forgotten? And sometimes the person who needs that reminder is the person we would least expect. Maybe it is the person struggling with addiction. Maybe it is the person who has made terrible decisions. Maybe it is the person who hurt us. Maybe it is the person who doesn't know how to love properly because nobody ever taught them how. Maybe it is someone who looks completely different from us. And maybe just maybe, sometimes, it is ourselves. Because we also need to remember that God does not stop loving us when we fail. He doesn't abandon us because we stumble. He doesn't turn His back on us because we haven't figured everything out. He continues to teach us. He continues to call us. He continues to form us. And He continues to say, Come closer. That is what I find so beautiful about Jesus. He doesn't simply give us commandments. He reveals the heart behind them.

The commandments are not merely rules designed to control us. Or meant to be checked off, like a grocery list. They are invitations into a relationship with God. They teach us how to live because God knows what we were created for. We were created for love. First, to love God. Then, because we love God, to learn how to love one another. Truth is that we will never do it perfectly. But maybe God isn't asking us to become perfect overnight. Maybe He is simply asking us to take one more step. Give a little more. Forgive a little more. Listen a little more. Be patient a little longer. Judge a little less. Serve someone without expecting anything in return. Look at someone the world has forgotten and remember that God has not forgotten them. Because every time we do that, we are allowing God to reshape our hearts. And what do you know, this is the real miracle. Not simply that God changes our circumstances, but that He changes us in the middle of them. He takes our selfishness and teaches us generosity. He takes our pride and teaches us humility. He takes our wounds and teaches us compassion. He takes our little acts of charity and turns them into encounters with His grace.

And sometimes we think we are the ones bringing God to someone else. But then, if we pay attention, we realize something beautiful: God was already there. And He was using that person to bring Him closer to us. 

God bless you always.