—I do will it. Be made clean.—

What a wonderful thing to hear as we begin this season of Septuagesima.

Septuagesima literally means seventy. It is now approximately seventy days before Easter. This is the time of preparation before the Holy and penitential season of Lent.

We begin to descend into that time of mourning and penance. The Gloria and the Alleluia are not said. We are wearing rose colored vestments. We are considering our call to be changed.

The Holy Church in her wisdom gives us the seasons of the year to fit our human need. Our need right now is to come down from the joy of Christmas and transition to Lent.

We need to prepare for change. Preparation is so important because we cannot expect to change overnight, and we cannot expect to do it alone.

Sudden conversion happens of course. But that type of conversion is a momentary event. We are called to cooperate in our conversion in a continuous and on-going way. We are called to commit to constant change.

You were all converted at your baptism. You received a great gift. You are no longer outside the camp, crying out —unclean, unclean—. You were made part of God’s Holy Church. You are inside.

Unfortunately, even though we are on the inside, we still live with our leprosy. We all carry the blotch of sin on us and in us. Furthermore, we cannot change our spots on our own. Reliance on God is absolutely required. Cooperation within the Church is essential.

Do you think you can change alone? Do you think that you have the willpower? Can you stop smoking, give up food or drug addictions? Can you get away from improper relationships? Can you change the behaviors, attitudes, prejudices, and addictions that make you a leper?

I tell you, you cannot cleanse yourself.

You cannot change without first placing your reliance and hope in Christ Jesus. You and I need to come to Him first. We need to kneel here and ask His forgiveness. We need to take the sacrament of penance seriously and move from penance to reformation. Penance and absolution are sacramentally imparted at every Holy Mass. Do you do your penance? Do you reform?

The Church does more than impart the sacraments. If you are coming here as-is, without serious consideration of what you are doing, then the gifts of grace prepared for you will have little if any affect. You need to come for the guidance of the Church and cooperate with it for your salvation.

How does the Church help? Start with some of its simple laws.

Do you fast two hours before you receive Holy Communion or was that candy bar, bowl of cereal, or roll just too tempting?

It is required to fast. It is a sacrifice to fast. It opens you up so that the physical sensation of receiving the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ is a real physical sensation. It is not just intellectual and spiritual. Jesus is feeding you in a real way. In the in the King James Version of John 6:55 Jesus says:

“For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.”

Let Jesus fill you Sunday morning and not just figuratively.

Do you abstain from meat on every Friday or was that baloney sandwich too tempting? Will you abstain every Wednesday and Friday in Lent?

Some people scoff at the idea. How quaint, how old fashioned. They say, ‘I’m smarter than that! and they will not do it.’ If a person cannot even do the small things that are required out of love for Jesus how will they be humble enough to change the big things.

Be humble. Let Jesus be glorified. That baloney sandwich will become a very heavy cross this Lent. Every Wednesday and Friday you will long for it. Be humble. Let Jesus be glorified.

The Church is giving you a great opportunity in this season of Septuagesima.

Consider what needs to be changed and use the season of Lent fruitfully. Commit to change in the little things and the big things. Most of all, fall at Christ’s feet in humility. Cry out to Him, I am unclean! Unclean!

He will say to you: —I do will it. Be made clean.—

Then you will be ready to meet Jesus Christ in the light of His Easter glory and it will be gloriously special.

As a diaconate student I had to prepare homilies for my homiletics teacher, the Very Rev. Walter Madej. He had me present the readings, Gospel, the invocation to the Holy Spirit and my homilies from the Ambo.

What I liked was that he paid attention to every detail, from my demeanor and speaking style to the the rubrics and content.

In honor of the Pope’s recent encyclical on love and the upcoming Valentine’s Day holiday I am presenting a reworked version of my student homily Unrequited Love:

My brothers and sisters,

The risk of love is that it may be rejected. The rejection of true love is a great sin.

I am not speaking of love in the sense of romantic or erotic love which may be transitory, but love in the sense of Godly love.

God’s love is the love that is within us. We are created with the love of God within us. It cannot be any less for we are created in God’s image.

While we find an imperfect imitation of God’s great and perfect love in our earthly existence, in the future we will see and experience the perfection of God’s love.

St. Paul tells us:

“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him”

What St. Paul tells us gives us great hope. However, it is preconditioned on our loving Him who loves us. It is a two way street.

There is nothing better in the heavens or the earth than loving God and having an absolute, unquenchable desire for Him.

Why then do so many reject God? Why do so many deny Him?

Those who engage in the rejection of God are engaging in the rejection and denial of the deepest and truest love. They completely miss the perfection of love.

Beyond that, their rejection pains all of humanity. This is the pain of sin and the pain of sin always comes from our rejection of God’s love.

We reject God’s love by harming ourselves and our neighbors. We sin when we reject the image of God in each human person. This terrible sin, this rejection, is compounded when we feel someone, anyone, is unworthy of love.

The ultimate outcome of this sin is that we reject God Himself. Every sin is a diminishment of us and of humanity. This continued action —“ breaking down God’s gift of love within us —“ makes us less. Eventually it leads to the outward and inward rejection of Christ Himself. We have rejected Christ in us and Christ in others, why not reject Him altogether?

This rejection is a type of suicide. This rejection is an attempt to kill an essential part of ourselves and of all humanity. That is why it is most sinful.

A professor once said that the opposite of love is not hate; rather it is ignoring the other person. It is acting as if the other person does not exist.

The opposite of love then is denying and rejecting its existence. Along with rejecting love’s existence we diminish to nothingness those offering love, most especially God Himself.

My brothers and sisters,

God’s act of love made manifest in His creating us was rejected when man initially turned his back on God. In our rush to be gods unto ourselves we rejected the existence of the One who gives all love —“ absolute, perfect, generous, unceasing love.

But God did not quit. God revealed and gave of Himself more and more throughout time. He refused to close the door.

Reflect on those books of the Old Testament and upon the moments where God offers and humanity accepts.

Those are beautiful moments! Unfortunately they are often followed by complete rejection. God, the giver of all love is continually rejected by His own people.

Studies have shown that the name of Jesus, the Messiah, appears over one hundred times in the Old Testament. The texts of the Old Testament reveal His actual presence at creation and at moments with Abraham, Moses, Joshua, and Jacob. The continuous action of Christ is found throughout the Old Testament.

Finally, in the course of time God presented Himself and placed Himself into our hands. His Son Jesus becomes incarnate for our salvation.

Jesus, co-eternal with the Father and the Holy Spirit is finally sent by the Father as God’s consummate gift of love. This ultimate act of love in the person of Jesus is rejected.

Think of Jesus looking down upon Jerusalem. In Luke we see Jesus, not just knowing what is to come, but all that had happened before, Jesus who knew the history of rejection, experiencing great sadness:

As he drew near, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If this day you only knew what makes for peace–but now it is hidden from your eyes.”

Earlier in Luke Jesus laments

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how many times I yearned to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were unwilling!”

He is rejected by our sinfulness. By our rejection of the lover’s very existence love itself was killed —“ finally killed on a cross.

Yet God provided for the resurrection. God’s love could not be killed. Jesus’ death fulfilled God’s love by opening the path to God. Jesus showed us how to be the best of lovers. Jesus opened the pathway and gave us His gift of grace. Jesus then gave us the sacraments and the Church itself as visible realities attesting to His love.

My friends,

It is up to us. We must end this cycle of rejection. We must take charge of our calling and put God’s love above all else.

By the consummate lover’s undying gift our earthly life is not the end. Death is not final. When we die it is not the turning off of a light, passing into non-existence.

Because of the love of God and the promise of the resurrection, a way is open to eternal life and happiness. We have a way to peace, joy, and unity in heaven. Heaven is the perfection of God’s love. Jesus is the way.

Dearest,

To reach heaven we are called to answer yes to God’s love. We are not to leave His love unrequited. We are called to be changed, to be re-created, re-born, and re-generated.

There are so many examples for us. They begin with our call to imitate Mary’s yes. We are called to imitate the Apostles conversion at Pentecost. We are called to follow the examples of the Saints and —those who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith—. We are called to join ourselves to Christ.

The world of today is and indeed the people of the centuries before us were experts at rejection, at ignoring love. Even so, God never closes the door.

So to action! We need to show God’s love. We need to acknowledge its reality in our own lives and in the lives of our friends. Yes, and even in the lives of our enemies. The lover exists and His presence is before us always. Even to the end of time.

Bow down, worship, for we are unworthy but oh so blessed to enter this relationship with God. We are blessed by His free gift of Love. We need to show that love and we need to live it. We cannot dare to leave God’s love unrequited.