Are you holy? Don’t answer so fast!
The Church is moving toward canonizing the first millennial as a saint according to a recent article in the Express-News. He was officially declared “Blessed” by the pope earlier this month, which is the final step before sainthood. Carlos Acutis, who lived in Milan, was just 15 when he died of leukemia in 2006. He was buried in his Nikes, jeans and a sweater. He is known as the patron saint of the internet for the ways he used it as an expression and promotion of his Catholic faith. He attended daily Mass from the age of 7. He sought ways to help poor, older and disabled people and refugees. He would stop on the way to school to chat with people about their problems. He took meals and sleeping bags to homeless people. At a time when young people are leaving the Church he is a great example and motivation for them. Pope Francis said he was an example that “true happiness is found by putting God in first place and serving him in our brothers and sisters, especially the least.” That is holy!
The gospel today helps us understand that really the entire Bible is a love letter from God to us. Jesus is asked to name the two greatest commandments. The Jews had 613 commandments in the Torah and very few Jewish people could recite them all. Matthew writes his gospel for a Jewish Christian audience and is always looking for ways to connect Jewish tradition to the new Christian way of life so that the new Christians would see how Jesus fulfilled the law. In this case Jesus’ focus is on love of God and of neighbor. Even though both laws are found in the Old Testament, Jesus is the first to give equal importance to the two.
It is key that Matthew, in having Jesus quote Deuteronomy about loving God, changes one word. The original text said believers were to love God with their entire being – heart, soul and strength. Matthew used the term “mind” instead of “strength.” He wanted to stress the element of understanding and decision that is required to turn the heart over completely to God. We need to always learn more and we need to constantly reaffirm our decision to respond to God’s love. Fidelity to a relationship is what this is about.
Because God loves us first, always has, always will, we in turn return love to God and in loving God we can and must love each other. When we really realize how much God has loved us then we must respond with a thankful love. The love in thanksgiving that is generously directed at my brother and sister is a faithful love of God. That is holiness. It does not have to be perfect. It just has to keep trying in that direction.
Notice that Jesus does not say this is the greatest commandment among many. Rather he says that the whole of scripture, law and prophets, must be interpreted in light of this commandment. This gives the law of love a singular and ultimate importance.
The big question then arises, “Who is my neighbor?” Israelites understood neighbor to be other Israelites. The family and the clan were utmost. The first reading from Exodus says it is not only family and friends but also those I don’t know, aliens, strangers, widows, orphans and the poor. This is a consistent theme throughout scripture and in fact in Luke Jesus answers the neighbor question with the Good Samaritan parable. Your neighbor is not just the one like you but rather the one in need.
The Israelite was willing to show some compassion to others not of their race. Jesus, however, demanded you give others the same love you give yourself, a radically new concept at that time. Jesus is saying that if we love as He asks us to, then everything else will flow from that. Everything. All our call as Christians is anchored on love for God and others. This is how we live our faith. That is being holy!
To be Catholic is to strive to embrace a universal vision of living, that is to love our neighbor as we love God, to live out our faith, which is a global faith, a universal faith. When we share our love with the stranger, the neediest, the one we will never even know, the one who will never thank us, then we are loving God.
There are more than 60 million migrants and refugees in the world today, mostly fleeing violence, civil wars, grinding poverty or climate change that has made it impossible for them to raise crops. Today 40,000 people around the world died of hunger and hunger related disease that could have been prevented. The pandemic also has added 130 million people to the list of those who are food insecure. We don’t wake up thinking about whether we will eat or not, but three billion people in our world who live on less than $2 a day do.
Pope Francis wrote an Apostolic Exhortation, Gaudete et Exsultate, in March 2018, on the call to holiness in today’s world. A key passage tells us, “Our defense of the innocent unborn, for example, needs to be clear, firm and passionate, for at stake is the dignity of human life, which is always sacred and demands love for each person, regardless of his or her stage of development. Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged, the vulnerable infirm and elderly exposed to euthanasia, the victims of human trafficking, new forms of slavery, and every form of rejection. We cannot uphold an ideal of holiness that would ignore injustice in a world where some revel, spend with abandon and live only for the latest consumer goods, even as others look on from afar, living their entire lives in abject poverty”.
Are you holy? These words of the pope should urge us on as we try to love others and participate in making our country and our community a better place. This means, to the best of our ability and circumstances, involving ourselves in actions that directly help others in need in our neighborhood, our city, our country and even our world. Since March this has included all the ways we help each other during the pandemic. During these weeks this year, this means participating and voting in the election. Yes, voting can be an act of holiness, especially when it is done keeping in mind the sacred issues that the pope referred us to above. Love and holiness are multi-faceted.
Pope Francis is outlining many of the challenging issues today that call us to love others and thus show our love for God. He is pricking our consciences to ask ourselves tough questions in our lives of faith. How many of these issues can you do something about, even in a small way?
Holiness, as we can see in the life of young Carlos, is not rocket science. It is being aware of the small ways we can show care and compassion for others around us. It is supporting those who work with the neediest here and abroad. It is using all the means at our disposal, like the internet and social media, as Carlos did in such an uplifting way. It is finding opportunities during the pandemic to support others, whether in their illness or because of the consequences of Covid, like loss of employment or food insecurity. It is being an advocate for those in need to our local and national government. None of this is really super hard to do or even heroic, but it is holy work.
To be holy we don’t need to go convert China. How about starting by converting ourselves a little bit every day? Continuing conversion is our vocation to holiness and we can’t be discouraged when we stumble along the way. That just means we are lining up behind the apostles in the gospels who stumbled a lot. The struggle to love God as we love others can be really tough. However, it is the only way to holiness and true happiness.
Fr. David Garcia is a retired priest from the Archdiocese of San Antonio, Texas, where he served for 44 years. During that time, Fr. Garcia was instrumental in the effort to have the Old Spanish Missions recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and also oversaw the multimillion-dollar restoration of San Fernando Cathedral. Fr. David served as pastor for several parishes in San Antonio, including the historic Mission Concepción. He also served as Senior Advisor for Clergy Outreach at Catholic Relief Services, the official international humanitarian and relief agency of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.