Before I forget...       

     I've been using this quote from Dostoyevsky in my prayer and meditation this spring: 
Love people even in their sin, for that is the semblance of divine love
and is the highest love on earth.  Love all of God's creation, the whole

and every grain of sand of it.  Love every leaf, every ray of
God's light.  Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. 
If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things.
Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. 
And you will come at last to love the whole world with all embracing love.

     Religion is a love affair with God!  We believe that God loves us (human beings) so much that God sent the Son to redeem us.  The Son (Jesus Christ) and God loves us so much that they sent the Spirit, I am so thankful that my parents had me baptized and raised a Catholic Christian, I really am.  And, I am so thankful for the wonderful people that God put into my life.
     Aren't you thankful that you belong to a loving God and that you belong to the Body of Christ, that you are a disciple of Christ?  The past several months have been painful for American Catholics.  We've been deeply hurt, wounded and in need of healing.  And Jesus Christ invites us in 2002 to follow him:  "I am the Way, the Truth, the Life."  His way always leads to suffering, death and resurrection. Why would our parents have us baptized into his suffering and death?  Because it leads to resurrection, to new life.  We must carry the cross daily; we must drink from the cup of suffering.  It is not easy to be his disciple.  Why would one want to fall out of love with this God? 
     Spiritual writer Robert Capon put it this way:  "Jesus came to raise the dead.  The only qualification for the gift of the gospel is to be dead.  You don't have to be smart.   You don't have to be good.  You don't have to be wise.  You don't have to be wonderful.  You don't have to be anything.  You just have to be dead.  That's it."  Jesus gives us HOPE when we are mentally, emotionally, spiritually and even physically dead.  I don't have to be virtuous or "worthy" for this Jesus to care about me and raise me up.  In fact the "more dead" I am, the more he seems to care about me.  The gospel even tells us that even if we aren't "orthodox", he has time for us--because we need him more than the "orthodox" crowd. 
     Read the gospels.  Have you ever read about any one so open and accepting?  He is forgiving and merciful.  He loves me in his sinfulness and nothing ness.  Even if I am struggling and a "mess", unimportant, unloved, I am still loved and important to Jesus.  Read the gospel stories about the people Jesus encounters and heals.  No matter how small, how minor a figure in society, how overlooked or unpopular, how sidelined, how much of an outcast, no matter how "different" they were, or we are, there is One who always has time, takes notice with love, and has compassion.
     I know it is hard to believe, but there are some priests who don't like me or talk to me.  They think I am too much of a sinner, obviously a hypocrite, too liberal, not orthodox enough.  There are those who judge me, who think I am a loser, a nerd.  If these people never affirm me, never notice my strivings, make me feel that I count, or have time to break bread with me, there is One who knows my name, calls me by name, loves me, ignores what they think and has time to pay attention to me.
     Like so many other people throughout the ages, I have to ask, what kind of a person is this Jesus?  His love is so wonderful that I constantly experience his healing in my life.  He tells you and me "Your faith in me will make you well."   He invites great saints and great sinners to follow him as radical disciples.  It's important for me to follow Christ and to join others who call ourselves His church.
     Remember that He loves the lost and finds them; He loves those who hurt and heals them; He loves the weak and makes them strong; He loves those who are down and loves them up.  On this Father's Day, I am most thankful that my father brought me to church to be baptized in Christ's love.  Some days, His love is all that I have. 
     I simply want to respond to His Love.  Don't you?

Fr. Bill