Love Has a Face

[Note: The following is a reflection that was given on Monday night during St. Matthew's Parish Lenten Holy Hour.]

During a recent conversation with Bishop Bambera, I asked the bishop which Scripture image or passage he recommended I pray with during Lent, especially as I prepare for ordination to the transitional diaconate. Without skipping a beat, he said, “Matthew 25.” Bishop Bambera then explained to me why he thought this passage was so important: “Matthew 25 points beyond a lofty idea of serving our neighbor. In Matthew 25, Jesus gives us a very tangible, concrete, and fleshy expression of how we are to serve others.”

Love is concrete. Love is tangible. Love has a face. 

My friends, during these first days of Lent, we begin by looking to the future. We look to our end, to our Final Judgment. The entirety of our Christian pilgrimage is directed toward loving our God. And our God is only loved when we authentically serve Him in our neighbor. This love is not a fluffy, vague notion, but it is made manifest through real, tangible expressions.

-If you ever changed a diaper for your child or for your elderly parent;

-If you have ever cooked a meal for anybody who was hungry;

-If you helped change the tire of somebody left stranded on the side of the road;

-Or if you once got a cup of coffee with somebody who was in desperate need of human companionship …then you have served your neighbor. You have loved God who is hidden in your neighbor.

I was recently with two of our homeless friends. They were describing for me the time when they washed and groomed the hair of their companion who lives in a tent. His friends jumped back and laughed at the sight. Their friend had a head of hair that made him look like Jesus with a halo. “Maybe it was Jesus,” one of them said. If only they knew. If only they realized! Yes, this was indeed Jesus! Any act of kindness, any act of mercy, any act of love directed towards our brothers and sisters is done to Jesus. 

Love is concrete. Love is tangible. Love has a face.  

It takes eyes of faith to truly see Jesus present in the faces of those whom we serve with great and small gestures of love. And tonight, before the Blessed Sacrament, we are also challenged once again to have eyes of faith – to believe that Jesus is truly and completely here – in body, blood, soul, and divinity. Jesus who is present in the monstrance and tabernacle, is the same Jesus we receive from the altar of the Lord, is the same Jesus who comes to us as our hungry, thirsty, poor, imprisoned, naked, sick, homeless, and vulnerable sisters and brothers.

Our love of God and our love of neighbor is never to be fragmented, exclusive, or separated. Let’s recall the words written by Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI, who wrote: “A Eucharist which does not pass over into the concrete practice of love is intrinsically fragmented.” Our time here in Adoration of the Lord is to lead us to adore the abiding presence of Jesus in the least of our brothers and sisters.

This journey of selfless service to others is a journey of a lifetime! We will never do it perfectly! We may not always experience immediate, satisfying results. We may not always enjoy what we are doing. Still, we are called to be faithful and humble in our task. We are called to see with eyes of faith that in loving others, we are also expressing our love for God.

And at the end of our earthly pilgrimage, we believe that the Lord Jesus will one day greet us with those words of profound joy: “Come you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world…for whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.”

Love is concrete. Love is tangible. Love has a face.