Wholehearted Love

Homily for the Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

October is finished and November is already three days old. However, I would like to stop for a moment and give a nod to October because it is a great month for remembering some of our favorite saints. It begins with the commemoration of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the Little Flower, and ends with All Hallows Eve, the night of spirits who do not so much haunt streets as inspire hearts. We then move on the Feast of All Saints

October is a month of giants, great saints: Francis of Assisi, who rebuilt the church and inspired centuries of holy souls; Teresa of Avila, a mighty doctor of the church and reformer of the Carmelites; Anthony Claret, missionary, founder, archbishop of Cuba, and chaplain to the Queen of Spain; Simon, Jude, and Luke, apostles and evangelist; Ignatius of Antioch, one of the earliest bishops, a martyr in Rome; Margaret Mary Alacoque, a Visitation contemplative, who with her Jesuit friend Claude La Colombière bequeathed the Sacred Heart devotion to the church.

Yet they all had in common the kind of wholeheartedness that the Book of Deuteronomy and the Gospel of Mark require: to love the Lord our God with all one's heart, soul, mind, and strength. While you may not be called to love God in the same manner as these saints, we are all called to wholehearted love of God and neighbor nonetheless.

At first hearing, the “Great Commandment” might suggest to us, as it did to a young woman at the turn of the twentieth century, a range of high and mighty acts. Thérèse longed to die the death of a martyr, to be a missionary bringing others to the faith, to be another Joan of Arc. She recorded all these dreams in her diary which today is known as The Story of a Soul. And yet, Thérèse Martin, psychologically and physically frail, hidden and protected from the onslaughts of the world, soon realized that her gift was not that of the noble warrior or the martyr of faith, nor that of an apostle, missionary, or preacher. Her grace was to love with whatever heart and mind were given her.

Francis of Assisi set out to be a penitent and surrounded himself with other men who were of a like mind. As a young man, he had led a life of excess. However, one day, God spoke to him as he prayed before a crucifix. From that day forward, he followed the crucified Christ. He embraced and washed and clothed lepers, seeing in them, the image of the suffering Christ.

Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, both Carmelites, lived during the time of what is now known as the counter reformation, a time when the Church reacted to those who tore themselves away from the Church. Teresa, dissatisfied with the quality of her religious life after living several years at the Incarnation Convent in Avila, had begun her reform to establish houses closer to the original spirit of Carmel. Having permission to also erect a reformed priory she needed a male counterpart to begin the foundation. This would require a like-minded person, one who shared a common vision. Thus, out of this need grew a deep and lasting friendship. John of the Cross, some twenty-seven years her junior, a newly ordained Carmelite priest, was considering leaving Carmel and joining the Carthusian monks. However, their encounter led to a spiritual relationship that furthered the reform of both of their monasteries. Teresa speaks of such a relationship when she writes in one of her letters, “What a wonderful thing it is for two souls to understand each other, for they neither lack something to say, nor grow tired.” John recognized in Teresa’s reform what he had so ardently been seeking and acknowledged her leadership and guidance. Teresa appreciated in this new acquaintance the richness of his deep interior life and soon selected him as her spiritual director and later requested him as the confessor for the Incarnation Convent. Their likenesses advanced them toward the same goal while their differences enhanced the spirit that would permeate the reform.

The wisdom shared by all the saints, after all, was not about the particular talents or deficits one brought to the world. It was about the wholeheartedness of love, a willingness to give it all away. They also seemed to know that wholeheartedness was not a matter of “once and for all,” or something that would happen overnight. It was, rather, a matter of opening up their entire lives to the transforming grace of God.

In such a well-balanced friendship of spiritual depth, the human need for companionship and support is afforded. Since no one person possesses all gifts, each must have gifts to offer the other and the capacity to receive from the other. Thus, each makes up to some extent what is lacking in oneself. This source of mutual help must be rooted in one’s love of God. Thomas Merton expressed this well when he said, “We will see that we are human, like everyone else, that we all have weaknesses and deficiencies, and that these limitations of ours play a most important part in all our lives. It is because of them that we need others and others need us. We are not all weak in the same spots, and so we supplement and complete one another, each one making up in himself for the lack in another.”

Little Thérèse would learn to love despite countless slights imagined or real, suffocating caregivers, and the frailty of her body and psyche. The great Teresa would face victories and terrible defeats, rewards and rejections—but with a permeating faith, even through her disillusionment over projects. Francis of Assisi suffered nerve-wracking discouragement and disappointments with himself and his communities. The wonder of their lives was that even in their defeats they abandoned everything into the care of God.

We imagine that wholeheartedness is some achievement or jewel of ours that we bestow upon the grateful Almighty. Or we fear that if we offer our all, something cherished will be snatched away from us. Too much might be asked. Something terrible demanded. We miss the point. Wholehearted love means that we present everything of ourselves before our God, even our dust and dross. The gift is not taken away, it is transformed. We are not robbed, we are revitalized.

Our Catholic history is built on the two great commandments. All the saints, whether celebrated or unknown, placing every grain of hope in God, became likened to God. And in poverty or mourning, in gentleness or hunger, in the mercy they gave and the peace they brought, even in the terrible losses they endured, they found the happiness we all long for. As the great St. Augustine of Hippo wrote: “You have made us for yourself, O God, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”