Homily: Monday - 2nd Week of Advent 2016 - Friend of the paralyzed

Of the four weeks of Advent, the first week is characterized by hope, the second by love, the third by joy, and the fourth by peace.

So this second week of Advent , we reflect on God’s love for us, our love for God, and the love we are to practice towards others.

We hear that word, ‘love’ used so often today, in so many different contexts: I love chocolate ice cream, I love classical music, I love my dog or cat or pet canary. Sometimes the word love means really enjoying an activity, “I love canoeing” or having strong positive feelings about a thing or person, “I love my grandma”.

Love of money, love of pleasure, love of fame, love of power, can become something very dangerous for my eternal soul.  Love of ice cream can change, if I eat a gallon of it and get sick.

But when Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love God and love our neighbor, he spoke of love in the truest sense.  True love is not just a feeling or emotion that changes.  When Jesus uses the word love he’s talking about something very unselfish.  He’s talking about something that led him to lay down his life—self-sacrifice for the good of another is the stuff that true love is made of.  Self-sacrificial love is certainly something all Christian spouses are called to practice towards each other, and for the person serious about growing in holiness, self-sacrificial love is something to be practiced towards all.

The Gospel teaches us an important lesson about love today.  God’s love seeks to free us from paralysis, most importantly the paralysis of sin—the fear, the envy, the selfishness, the hurt that keeps us from loving as we are called to love.

And, once freed from paralysis, we are meant to exercise the sort of activity characterized by the friends of the paralyzed man, who bring him to Jesus. We are freed from paralysis in order to bring the paralyzed to Jesus. We are freed from sin in order to bring the sinner to Jesus.

Each of us knows someone who is in desperate need of the merciful healing of Jesus.  Like the men in the Gospel, God invites us to be friend to the paralyzed and to make that extra effort in bringing family and friends who have fallen away or lost their faith back to the Sacramental life of the church.  Think of and pray for three or four people today who you are being called to “love” in this unique way—in going extra mile to invite them to be freed from their paralysis through the encounter with the mercy of Jesus Christ, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.