Unleash Love

Homily for Thursday after Ash Wednesday

At this moment, you might be thinking, “Didn’t we just hear this Gospel reading two days ago?” Yes, we did hear these words except for the fact that today we read them from the Gospel of St. Luke whereas on Tuesday we read them from the Gospel of St. Mark.

As I did yesterday, I would like to invoke the memory of Pope St. John Paul II who used to say that the purpose of suffering in this life of ours was to “unleash love.” Think for a moment of a magnificent horse which is penned up in a corral, a fenced in area. Now think of yourself. Have you allowed yourself to be fenced in by selfishness? All of us have to admit that we live in a world where selfishness has been championed from many different aspects of our culture. Our media is filled with advertisements that encourage us to pamper ourselves and to make sure that our every need is filled. Living in that world, as we do, we are constantly faced with the temptation to think of ourselves first. Just as the horse which is penned up in a corral would immediately run free if the fence around it were broken, we too may have unknowingly or unconsciously begun to think of ourselves and our individual freedom as our number one priority.

In today’s Gospel we are asked to take up our cross daily and to follow Christ. The cross is the battering ram that can break the fence that surrounds us in today’s world. With that fence destroyed, we can turn to a life in which we allow our love to run free.

So many people question the existence of God because of the suffering in our world. How could a God who is Love allow anyone to suffer? The answer to that question lies in the reality of our human life in an imperfect world. When sin entered the world, the imperfections of our world were set free. Those imperfections are the causes of human suffering. The way to obliterate human suffering is to unleash love, to let love into the suffering and pain of our world. No one person can feed all the hungry people of our world, but one person can feed one other hungry person. No one person can heal all the brokenhearted people of our world, but one person can heal another brokenhearted person. Let us unleash love this Lent through sacrifice and prayer and almsgiving.