Intense

Tags

gift, grace, intense, judging, love, St. Angela Merici, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Sometimes it only takes one word to capture my attention and get me thinking. It happened this morning as I read the section of 1 PT 4 that was an optional reading for the Memorial of St. Angela Merici, an important saint in the religious order of Ursuline Sisters. (Her biography is definitely worth a read.)

Here is the quote: Beloved, be serious and sober-minded so that you will be able to pray. Above all, let your love for one another be intense, because love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without complaining. As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace.

Diving deeply into that statement makes me consider several things:

1. It doesn’t matter how imperfect I am, I’m still called to a deep and high love.

2. We can’t be judging each other because all of us are imperfect (what a relief!).

3. Since we’re gifted by God in various ways, our love will probably be expressed differently and uniquely to each other.

4. There’s lots more possible to find about love when we delve the word intense…

In addition, questions: What is my particular gift in the complex of different ways to love? How can I best reflect God in my love for “all God’s children?”

Judgment

Tags

humility, hurt, Jesus, judge, judging, Matthew, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

There’s no doubt about the meaning of today’s gospel (MT 7:1-5). Jesus begins with “STOP JUDGING!” (Emphasis mine). Those words are enough for me as my judgmental mind knows the strength of my tendency to judge everything – and everyone – by appearance. This is my most consistent spiritual practice: to let go of judging others and myself by the measure of perfection that I appropriated in childhood or along the way from culture or image of God or the opinions of others. Our voyeuristic culture loves to sneak into the lives of the rich and famous and find their flaws. Our economic culture tells us what is “in” to wear and drive and eat and do for recreation. Our religious upbringing sometimes still sends echoes of “not good enough” into our minds while God withholds nothing from us if we look to our hearts.

Judging is sometimes an automatic function of our make-up but is not always a bad thing. We must be discriminative in our choices in life and so the ability to judge between goods, or between what would be good for us and what would not, is crucial. I know that isn’t what Jesus is talking about this morning, however, because he goes on to say, “Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye?” That sentence always stops me cold as I think of how even the smallest foreign object in my eye hurts. Humility quickly follows as I ponder my judgmental self. Then I take a breath, try to let go of what I’m thinking (even though I’d rather share my opinion!) and start again to walk the better path where I know God waits with a smile of understanding.