by Joan Mitchell, CSJ
As his first act in Jerusalem, Jesus cleanses the temple, claiming the space for prayer rather than commerce. “By whose authority?” temple leaders ask. The blind and lame quickly seek Jesus out and claim the space for healing.
In the gospels of the fall Sundays, Jesus inhabits the temple courts, teaching and disputing questions with the priests who serve the temple, scribes, Sadducees, elders, and Pharisees. The issues — tenants, taxes, and this Sunday, which commandment is greatest?
We know the answer to that question. The greatest commandment is to love God with all our heart and to love our neighbor as ourselves. What we don’t know, what we have to keep learning as we grow older, is what loving means.
It used to be simpler. To love God meant to be a faithful churchgoer, a contributor to the church, to raise one’s children in the faith, to pray and trust and hope in God’s working in one’s life. To love our neighbor meant to take care of those around us, starting with our families, then friends, then our civic and church community. It meant to give wholehearted service to those who need us. To be as generous to others with material goods and understanding as we are to ourselves.
Then along comes Pope Francis. Out of the blue we have a pope who tells us and tells the whole world in his letter called Laudato Si, Care for Our Common Home that love of God and of our neighbor includes love of everything God has created. Everything. He tells us love of God and neighbor means also love of the trees, the prairies, the oceans, the whole created world. To love all that exists is to love God who made it all (Wisdom 11.24).
Perhaps Mary Oliver puts it best for us in her poem “Praying.”
It doesn’t have to be the blue iris,
it could be weeds in a vacant lot,
or a few small stones;
just pay attention,
then patch a few words together
and don’t try to make them
elaborate,
this isn’t a contest
but the doorway to thanks
and a silence in which
another voice may speak.
What have you learned from the pandemic? From protesting for justice?