WHO OR WHAT DO I LOVE THE MOST?

“Jesus said:  ‘Hear another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a tower. Then he leased it to tenants. When vintage time drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to obtain his produce.  But the tenants seized the servants and one they beat, another they killed, and a third they stoned.  . . . Finally, he sent his son to them, thinking, “They will respect my son.” . .  But . . . they killed him.

What will the owner of the vineyard do to those tenants when he comes?’

They answered him, ‘He will put those wretched men to a wretched death and lease his vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the proper times.’” Matthew 21: 33-41

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Consider ourselves as the tenants in God’s vineyard, supposedly working away at whatever God intends us to “do” or, more importantly, to “be” during our life on earth.  As the homilist Msgr. Steven Rohlfs said at Archbishop Myers’ Funeral Mass, upon death, we enter into the final stage of life and are face to face with God.

“We meet the God who created us and loves us, and He asks us one profound question:  Do you love me more than anyone or anything else? . . . All of the good and bad things that we have ever done, do count, but it is all wrapped up into that one profound, simple question:  Do you love me more than anyone or anything else?  The sticky point is that little word ‘more.’  Most of us try to love God . . . but just not ‘more’ than anyone or anything else.”

And, like the tenant farmers in this Gospel story, therein lies our problem.

Perhaps this is where the concept of purgatory makes sense, even though we don’t want to believe that God would make us go to purgatory.  Is it really God who “sends” us to purgatory?  Or do we send ourselves there by being the shortsighted tenants, inattentive to befriending God , to growing to love God more than the other things to which we pay more attention and, thus, enjoy more?

Msgr. Rohlfs says, “Heaven is a person much more than it is a place.”  What makes heaven be a “heaven” for us is that God, whom we have grown to love more than anything else, is there! Once we let ourselves love God more than anyone or anything else, we are ready to spend the rest of our lives loving Him and being loved by Him.

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU TRIED TO TRULY “SEE” GOD?

When was the last time you encountered someone who seemed to love God the most?  When was the last time you asked that person about how she came to love God so much?  . . . about how it started for her?  . . . about your wanting to love God more than anyone or anything else? How about asking for some clues on how to do this?

And think about this:  What is the rest of your life going to be like if you never figure out how to love God more than anyone or anything else?

Sister Loretta