{"id":8490,"date":"2022-01-23T13:14:53","date_gmt":"2022-01-23T21:14:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/?p=8490"},"modified":"2022-01-23T13:14:53","modified_gmt":"2022-01-23T21:14:53","slug":"the-greatest-love-letter-of-all-time-homily-for-word-of-god-sunday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/the-greatest-love-letter-of-all-time-homily-for-word-of-god-sunday","title":{"rendered":"The Greatest Love Letter of All Time – Homily for Word of God Sunday"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

About five or six years ago there was a poll
\nto discover the world\u2019s greatest love letter.
\nAfter all the votes were tallied,
\nthe overwhelming favorite
\namong all the love letters ever written,
\nwas a letter from country music singer Johnny Cash
\nto his wife June Carter Cash for her 65th birthday.
\nThe letter was published in a book by their son about ten years ago,
\nand it’s just a beautiful letter, brief, simple, and heartfelt,
\nand it goes like this:<\/p>\n

Happy Birthday Princess,<\/p>\n

We get old and get used to each other.
\nWe think alike.
\nWe read each others [sic] minds.
\nWe know what the other wants without asking.<\/p>\n

Sometimes we irritate each other a little bit.
\nMaybe sometimes take each other for granted.<\/p>\n

But once in awhile, like today,
\nI meditate on it and realize how lucky I am
\nto share my life with the greatest woman I ever met.
\nYou still fascinate and inspire me.
\nYou influence me for the better.
\nYou’re the object of my desire,
\nthe #1 Earthly reason for my existence.
\nI love you very much.<\/p>\n

Happy Birthday Princess. – John<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now there are many things to love about that letter.
\nFirst of all, I love it because it was written by Johnny Cash,
\nand I happen to be a fan.<\/p>\n

But aside from that, there\u2019s a real honesty to the letter,
\na simplicity that gets right to the point,
\na heartfelt sincerity.
\nJohnny Cash doesn\u2019t try to gloss anything over,
\nhe\u2019s not trying to hide anything.
\nThey sometimes get on each other\u2019s nerves,
\nand take each other for granted.
\nBut he ends with a beautiful tribute to how important she is to him,
\n\u201cthe #1 Earthly reason for his existence.\u201d
\nYou can tell that this is a letter
\nfrom someone who\u2019s been in a relationship for a long time,
\nwith its ups and downs, its tragedies and glories.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just beautiful, and it\u2019s no wonder that it was voted
\nthe greatest love letter of all time.<\/p>\n

Now I bring this up today
\nbecause this weekend is Word of God Sunday.
\nEvery year on the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
\nwe celebrate the Word of God, God\u2019s love letter to us.
\nThe Word of God is God\u2019s love letter to us.<\/p>\n

Love seeks expression.
\nLove, true love, almost demands to be communicated,
\nto be expressed to the beloved.
\nAnd so God, in his infinite love for us,
\ngives us his Word as a love letter to us.<\/p>\n

And what is the Word of God?
\nIf we look at the very beginning of the Gospel of John,
\nwe can see exactly what the Word of God is:
\n\u201cIn the beginning was the Word,
\nand the Word was with God,
\nand the Word was God.\u201d
\n\u201cAnd the Word became flesh and lived among us.\u201d
\nThe Word of God is not a what, but a Who,
\nthe person of Jesus Christ.
\nJesus Christ is the Word of God.
\nJesus is God\u2019s love letter to us.
\n\u201cFor God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.\u201d<\/p>\n

Out of love, the Father gives the Son as gift to the world.
\nJesus, the Word of God, is God\u2019s love letter to us.
\nAnd it is up to us to read that letter,
\nto receive Jesus into our lives, into our hearts.<\/p>\n

Like all married couples,
\nBrenda and I have exchanged love letters over the years.
\nAnd I don\u2019t think it would ever have occurred to us not to read
\nany of the love letters that we had written to each other.
\nTo receive a Valentine from Brenda and say,
\n\u201cOh, thanks, honey, I\u2019ll read this later,\u201d and set it aside?
\nOr, \u201cLet\u2019s put this anniversary card on the stack
\nwith the bills and junk mail,
\nand all the rest of the stuff that we need to go through this week.\u201d<\/p>\n

No, when we get love letters from our beloved,
\nwe set everything aside to read them,
\nwhether they’re from a fianc\u00e9, a spouse, a parent or grandparent.
\nAnd we often go back and reread those letters,
\nnoticing something we missed the first time,
\nor just reveling in the love we feel coming through those simple lines.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s why it\u2019s so important for us to read Scripture regularly.
\nWe have a love letter from God that we can experience every single day,
\nand which leads us to encounter Jesus Christ, the true Word of God.
\nHow can we put that aside?
\nHow can we ignore that love letter?
\nWell, we get distracted, we get our priorities mixed up.<\/p>\n

And so that\u2019s one reason the parish is promoting
\nthe Bible in a Year Podcast.
\nIt\u2019s one way of staying committed to reading that love letter,
\ncherishing the Word of God daily.
\nIt\u2019s a convenient way of becoming acquainted with the whole of Scripture,
\nso you get the bird\u2019s-eye view, so to speak, of Salvation History.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve been listening to the podcast for the first three weeks,
\nI have just one word for you:
\nbrokenness.
\nThat seems to be Fr. Mike\u2019s word of the year so far.
\nIf you haven\u2019t been listening, and you\u2019d like to, it\u2019s not too late to start.
\nJust jump in on day 22 or 23.
\nOr start at the beginning and listen whenever you can.
\nAs Fr. Luke has been saying,
\nyou can listen in your car, while you exercise,
\nyou can even watch it on TV through the YouTube app
\nlike Brenda and I are doing with our family each evening,
\nso we can read the transcript in big letters.<\/p>\n

It can be really helpful to listen to the Word of God in its entirety,
\nlike the Bible in a Year Podcast is doing,
\nbut it\u2019s also important to read God’s love letter to us
\nis in a slow, deliberate, savoring way.
\nTo use a metaphor that I think some here will appreciate,
\nit\u2019s like opening up a bottle of fine wine and letting it breathe,
\nthen pouring it carefully into the glass,
\nswirling it around while you appreciate its color,
\nsniffing its complex aroma,
\nand finally sipping it slowly, absorbing the flavors.<\/p>\n

Reading our love letter from God
\nought to be a little like that.
\nSitting down comfortably and quietly,
\nturning deliberately to a sentence or paragraph of Scripture,
\nmaybe the Gospel reading for daily Mass,
\nand reading it ever so slowly,
\nlooking for a word or phrase that stands out to you.<\/p>\n

When you encounter a word or phrase like that, you stop reading
\nand roll that word or phrase around in your mind,
\nchewing on it, pondering it,
\nwondering what this particular word or phrase means to you,
\nand how God may be using it to communicate with you.<\/p>\n

Eventually, you may feel inspired
\nto speak your own verbal, prayerful response to God’s word.
\nAt that point you pray honestly, simply, and sincerely,
\njust like Johnny Cash\u2019s love letter.
\nYou pray not in order to make a good impression on God,
\nbut simply to be intimate with the One who loves you.
\nEventually, the words may just drop away
\nand the wordless silence will embrace you
\nas you simply sit in God\u2019s presence.<\/p>\n

For instance, if you were reading today\u2019s gospel,
\nyou might be taken by the phrase,
\n\u201cThe Spirit of the Lord is upon me.\u201d
\nAnd you might stop and ponder, and think to yourself,
\n\u201cThis is about Jesus, but it\u2019s also true of me.
\nThe Spirit of the Lord is upon me, too.
\nThrough my baptism and my confirmation,
\nI have received the Holy Spirit.
\nBut I forget that sometimes.
\nI forget what a great gift it is to have received the Holy Spirit.\u201d
\nAnd so I might ponder that awhile and be filled with gratitude,
\nand then I might return to the gospel and be drawn to the line,
\n\u201cHe has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.\u201d
\nSo then I might think, \u201cYes, I have received the Holy Spirit for a reason,
\nto bring glad tidings to the poor.\u201d
\nAnd at this point I may say to God, \u201cI\u2019m afraid of what that means,\u201d
\nor I might say, \u201cGod, show me how to do this.
\nI\u2019m not sure how to bring your glad tidings to the poor.
\nWho are the poor you want me to reach,
\nand how do I speak your glad tidings?
\nI\u2019m not very good at this kind of thing.
\nBut I believe that your Spirit is with me.\u201d
\nOr maybe I don\u2019t believe that,
\nmaybe I\u2019m having a hard time believing that, and so I tell God that, too.
\nYou see, our dialogue with God needs to be honest,
\njust like that love letter from Johnny Cash to his wife June.<\/p>\n

When mature lovers speak to each other,
\nthey tell the truth.
\nAnd so our reading and pondering of a word or phrase of Scripture
\nmay lead us to talk to God honestly and openly.
\nAnd after we speak, we sit in silence,
\nthe way long-married couples often do,
\nsaying nothing, just reveling in each others\u2019 presence.<\/p>\n

Just like Johnny Cash writes,<\/p>\n

We get old and get used to each other.<\/em>
\nWe think alike. We read each others\u2019 minds.<\/em>
\nWe know what the other wants without asking.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is what happens to us the more regularly we pray with Scripture,
\nspending time with the beloved who loves us infinitely,
\njust 15 or 20 minutes a day.
\nWe get used to God, we begin to think like God,
\nwe begin to know what God wants.
\nWe enter into communion with God.<\/p>\n

Reading the Bible this way is not about figuring it all out,
\nbut rather it\u2019s about encountering Jesus, the Word of God,
\nthrough the medium of the written word,
\nand entering into communion.<\/p>\n

On this Word of God Sunday,
\nI encourage you to make a commitment
\nto listening to the Bible in a Year Podcast,
\nor to spending 15 to 20 minutes each day
\nprayerfully reading the love letter that was written directly to you,
\nresponding to that letter in prayer,
\nand sitting in silence with the One who loves you infinitely,
\nso that you can say to God in all honesty,
\nYou’re the object of my desire,<\/em>
\nthe #1 Earthly reason for my existence.<\/em>
\nI love you very much.<\/em><\/p>\n