Just like the rest of my team, and probably like the other pilgrims around the world, I cannot believe there are only nine more days until I leave for World Youth Day!
From packing to last minute meetings with my team, the preparation has been getting real.It really started to hit me when I went to a sending off Mass held at Sacred Heart Parish in the Diocese of Yakima. Our Bishop was present to celebrate Mass and give us a sending off blessing. The Gospel reading which presented the question “Who is my neighbor” seemed to fit the occasion perfectly.
Bishop Joseph Tyson asked us “Do you love the law or is your law love?”
His words penetrated my mind and traveled down to my heart.
“Do you love the law or is your law love?”
I truly believe that God makes no mistakes and that there are no coincidences, so my mind naturally went to the fact that we are still in the Year of Mercy. I have been saying over and over again to anyone who will listen “It’s the year of Mercy!” I say it with conviction so they will believe as strongly as I do that now is a time for mercy and compassion. Now is a time to humble ourselves and place ourselves into other people’s shoes.
But as soon as Bishop Tyson’s words hit my heart, an overwhelming sense of discomfort hit me. I realized in that moment while I was loving the law, that my law as not love. I’ve said on a few occasions (sometimes jokingly, sometimes not) that “I have the discipline to hang on to a grudge.” It rang in my heart that that’s not mercy. That’s not compassion. That’s not love.
That brief moment was a moment of conversion, and I realized how i want to meet challenges in my life – with compassion and mercy rather than judgment, love rather than indifference. In that brief moment, questions that had been stirring in my heart were answered. And I felt the hand of God writing a beautiful love story on my heart.
Bishop Tyson then said that we are going to a gathering where over a million people are expected to gather peacefully to be witnesses to our faith. The world will be watching. The question is what will they see? In a way, I think it’s easier to answer that question with what I hope they won’t see. I hope they won’t see a Church that is closed off to those who are unlike them. I hope they won’t see judgment or hatred. I hope they won’t see selfishness and pride. In short, I hope that what they see is the face of God, and I hope that they see it so vividly that they can do nothing but want to be with us as one.
As I left the Church that afternoon, I felt a sense of responsibility on my shoulders, but I also felt light. I felt free. I felt full of grace. And I felt prepared to face the opportunity to praise God with many others. And while I’m entirely excited to board that plane, I know that I don’t have to wait 9 days to love God and love my neighbor.
Roamin' Catholic 