To be known by Love!

Matthew 7: 21-27 Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time. March 6th, 2011

Over quite a few weeks now we have been hearing the complete teaching of the Sermon on the Mount; and today we continue with more of this teaching from Jesus. If you remember weeks ago we began with the actual listing of the beatitudes and have worked our way through many of the teachings that are included in this whole discourse, which spans many Chapters in the Gospel of Matthew.

Last week’s Gospel from this discourse pointed out the fact that Jesus considers us infinitely lovable, as we are more precious than even the birds of the air or the flowers of the field. However, this week in his teaching Jesus, I believe, is basically asking each one of us a very interesting and unnerving question. In todays teaching Jesus is basically asking us, “Do I know you?” Think about this. Jesus is asking each one of us personally, if He knows who we are.

How uncomfortable do we feel when someone comes up to us, greets us and begins talking to us; and for the life of us we cannot think of whom this person is or what their name might be. When this happens we’re generally quite embarrassed and feel very foolish. We search our memories trying to figure out how we know this person or how they know us; Or, “do they really know us, or are they confusing us with someone else?”

Many times we may even try to pretend like we do know them. And we become especially anxious if they come right out ask us if we know them. Very few of us, I would think, come right out and ask them, “Do I know you?”

I have to admit, that this experience may happen to us priests more than anyone; we meet so many people and have to try to remember so many people. It is certainly not purposeful that we forget people, but when you only have one contact personally with someone, or only hear their name once or twice, it is hard to remember. And when someone asks us if we know them, we don’t want to hurt them by saying, “I don’t remember you, I forgot who you are, I don’t know you.”

Yet here today, it is Jesus who is asking if He knows us. Jesus is God, and yet He is asking us if He knows us! This seems odd, especially if you recall in last week’s Gospel, Jesus tells the crowd and us that we are more precious than the birds of the air and the flowers of the field. Recall also that it is God who has created us in His image and likeness and desires for us to receive His love so that in turn we can love Him in return. So why is Jesus asking us if he knows us?

Well, today I believe, Jesus is addressing all the “good people,” in the world. They may have even done mighty deeds in His name; yet, Christ tells them that He does not know them. They might respond to Jesus by saying, “But Jesus we were good how can you not know us!” But Jesus tells them in a very direct and one might say harsh manner- “I never knew you; depart from me you evildoers.”

Please note here that Jesus doesn’t say, “You don’t know me.” He says that He does not know them. I think the key to understanding this very direct and perplexing question to us from our Blessed Lord is that by this question Jesus is telling us that we must allow ourselves to be known by God. The question becomes for us then- do you let God know you?

This question is even harder to answer, as we may assume that God knows us, after all we think we have been good; hasn’t he come to know us by the good thing we have done? Doesn’t he know that we are good people? Also we might also think that in His divine knowledge God knows us even better than we know ourselves. But the answer to this question isn’t really a matter of intelligence; it is a matter of love.

I think something that might help explain what I mean is to use the wonderful example of this marriage. I remember while I was in seminary, I was part of a team of couples who prepared engaged couples for marriage. At the end of our day, we asked the couples for their opinion of our day. The couples and I would review the comments, some helpful and constructive and others rather revealing. I recall one couple said in their comment section that they did not anticipate any major problems in their marriage because they really knew each other. One of the married couples sighed and said, “Boy; are they in for a big surprise!”

I also have worked with a group called Retrouvaille, which is a group for married couples that are struggling. These couples, many of whom have been married for many years, will often say, “I woke up one morning and realized that I did not know the stranger sleeping next to me; and they didn’t know me.” Sadly, they had lived in the same house, sometimes for years, yet they “did not know” each other.

These couples had stopped communicating; they had stopped growing in their love because they had stopped growing in the knowledge of who each of them really were; Sons and daughters of God created in image and likeness, infinitely loved, infinitely loveable, able to love each other infinitely by their love and knowledge of the Creator. Thankfully, though the grace of Christ, their relationships can be healed and these folks can get to know each other again and so “rediscover” their love for one another.

The point is, is that knowledge of another requires the giving and receiving of love. To love a person is to not only know that person but to be known by this same person by our love for them. This is particularly true in our relationship with Christ. Do we let Christ get to know us through our daily prayer? Do we take the time each day to adore Him and struggle to give Him glory in everything we do, no matter our small and insignificant the task at hand may be? Do we examine are consciences at the end of the day and make an act of contrition for our failures in love of God and neighbor? In all of this, “Do we let Christ know us by our love for Him, and our love for others for love of Him?”!!!!!

And, so do we regularly allow an intimate encounter with God in our lives by frequenting the Sacraments of the Church, especially the Holy Eucharist and Confession? This, I think, gets to the very hear of the matter, to the answer of Jesus” question to us, “Do I know you?’ You see, ultimately, the Lord knows us through our union with the Church. Only in the Church can we have an intimate union with Him through and in the Sacraments.

It is the grace of the Sacraments that, if we open ourselves to them, transform us and strengthens us in love in order to more and more fulfill the Father’s Holy will here on earth as it is in heaven. And what is the Father’s will, “to love as we are loved, to be known by love!” And when we do the Father’s Will we become like His Son; He then knows us, and we know Him, because we become united to Him in Love. The Sacraments are the very means to be known by God because they are the means to be transformed not only in the knowledge of God’s love for us but by experiencing and being consumed by that love, in order to be united to God in a union of love.

In the end, God know us by our love, by our Charity, which is much more, infinitely more, than just knowing us by our “good” works…even the pagans can be “good.” But the pagans can’t love through Jesus, with Jesus, in Jesus, as Jesus loves. And so, today we discover that we are not called to just “be good” but to be holy, that is to do God’s will in order to know God and be known by Him in order to be one with Him in a union of love, now and forever. God of course is a Trinity of persons and we are called to believe in Him, to trust in Him, to adore Him in Spirit and in truth in order to love him, to love like Him and so be “known” by him. I think that this really sums up the essence of the message of our parish mission given this past week by Father Wade Menezes.

As you know, we enter the season of Lent this week and the first thing that people begin to consider is “what am I going to give-up for Lent?” I think that we should reflect on this question this week with the question we asked earlier- does Christ know me? In other words, will my Lenten observance bring Christ knowledge of me and through Christ and in Christ allow the Father and the Holy Spirit to “know me” by my love? Will it allow me to receive His love, forgiveness and mercy and so place all my trust in Him?

Too often we take what I call the coffee and chocolate course through Lent; that is, we give up coffee and chocolate for 40 days, but in the process we’re miserable and often in a bad mood and so fail in charity to others, especially with our family. Then after the 40 days, we just resume our consumption of coffee and chocolate. The only thing we can say at the end was we were able to give up these things; but it really doesn’t change us at all. I think we’d do better by just eating the Chocolate and drinking the Caffeine and being happy…and fat!

So perhaps instead this lent, you might “do” something instead of “giving up” something and maybe failing in charity. Perhaps this Lent you can commit both as individuals and families to spending one hour each and every week in adoration before the Holy Eucharist apart from the Holy Mass. There, in the physical present of the divine and human Jesus, the God who is love incarnate still among, you can allow the Rays of Jesus’ love and mercy to penetrate your heart, to transform it; there you can allow your God to love you in order that you would be known by Love Himself!