Two phrases resonate with me from today’s readings: “you must not be harsh…” and “you must love ..”
You must not be harsh with the widow or the orphan, with anyone who is vulnerable. We must not be harsh at all but harshness can easily creep into our lives and sometimes we are harsh with others because we are harsh with ourselves.
And Jesus says, you must love. This is the simple and often repeated foundation of the Christian life. Love heals all harshness – the love that God has for each of us personally, the love that others show us and we are also healed by loving.
Sometimes we think we must be healed of our wounds before we can love but, in fact, the act of loving – God and neighbour – is a great source of healing.
Today I’m conscious of a special experience of being loved by another. A priest with whom I worked closely for a few years, whom I haven’t met now for more than sixteen years, a man who found me very frustrating at times, with whom I formed a significant bond. This man wrote me the following:
“I always keep a candle burning for you in the cathedral of my heart! Yes, I always do!”
This is a most distinctive experience of neighbourly, brotherly love and I treasure it greatly. And so, today in San Silvestro, I would like us as a community to do something like this for Father Rory who will move to Ireland to take Office as Provincial later this week.
Let us close our eyes and enter into the cathedral of our own heart, that sacred place within us where God dwells, a spacious place of silence and there light a candle of blessing for Rory, a spiritual candle that will be kept burning here for him for all time.
Next you can bring to mind some other person you need to pray for and in the cathedral of your heart light a candle for them.
And we might also light a candle in the cathedral of our heart for Peace in the world.
Another candle I light today is for the late Father Emmanuel Msuri SAC who died on this day last year, a death that touched us very deeply in Hastings.
This kind of prayer is something we can do in any place, at any time. The cathedral of the heart is easily accessible, even if not always quiet, and God is always present there.
We conclude the prayer with:
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be world without end. Amen.
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Exodus 22:20‑26, Psalm 18, 1 Thessalonians 1:5c‑10, and Matthew 22:34‑40.