The associated reading for this reflection can be found in your Every Sacred Sunday Mass journal or online here.
This week’s readings all have one thing in common: Love.
The theme is personally fitting for me, as Sunday marks my 12th wedding anniversary. This week’s Gospel even ends with a line that is paraphrased in Paul Stookey’s often-used The Wedding Song—“whenever two or more of you are gathered in His name…there is love.”
While the love described in these readings is not what you might associate with a wedding, it is exactly the kind of love that a couple comes to embody together in the weather-tested crucible of a marriage, or that any true friends should strive to share.
This is a love that calls the beloved to conversion. A love that comes with choosing to deliver a refining truth with mercy rather than the cruel passivity of blind love without honesty. The first reading states that you will be held responsible for his death if “you do not speak out to dissuade the wicked from his way.” The second reading could not be clearer: “the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.”
While our friends and spouses are far from “wicked,” we are all capable of sin and in need of correction. If we are living by C.S. Lewis’ famous definition of love and truly willing the good of another, that means not shying away from moments when those we love need to be challenged and course-corrected to the path that will lead us to the Lord.
Since my wedding day, my number one job has been to get my wife and my children to heaven. Doing so requires the humility to accept that I am also a broken creature who relies on their love to get me to heaven, too. There is an indescribable mixture of guilt and pride that comes with your own child calling out one of your failings. Raise them right and apparently even your own kid can become a “watchman for the house of Israel,” warning you to turn from your wicked ways.
But this is exactly why God created us to live in community—the domestic Church. Where two or three are gathered in His name, there He is in the midst of us. And there is love.
Lord, teach us to open our hearts to hear Your voice through those who love us. Make us humble enough to receive their wisdom, and loving enough to lead others to You with courage and conviction.
Matt Paolelli is a writer and marketing professional who lives outside of Chicago with his wife and four young children. He loves playing board games, taking family bike rides, and trying to learn the guitar. Read more of his writing in his Amusing Catholic newsletter.
