Manete in Dilectione Mea
JMJ
“The greatest love story of all time is contained in a tiny white Host.”
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
On the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary during the Year of the Priest, I present to you my second Pastoral Letter, “Remain in my Love” (Jn. 15: 9). The theme of this letter is very dear to my heart, as it concerns the three loves of my life: the priesthood, which exists for and by the Eucharist; the Eucharist Itself; and Mary, Mother of the Eucharist and our Mother. Pope Benedict XVI writes that, “precisely because Mary is with God and in God, she is very close to each one of us. While she lived on this earth she could only be close to a few people. Being in God, who is actually ‘within’ all of us, Mary shares in this closeness to God.” John Paul II wrote that Our Lady “knows our hearts, can hear our prayers, can help us with her motherly kindness. She always listens to us, and, being Mother of the Son, participates in the power of the Son and in His goodness. We can always entrust the whole of our lives to this Mother. Her birth into heaven on this feast of the Assumption gives us ‘an ever new capacity to await God’s future.’” With Mary, I invite you to reflect upon God’s tremendous love for each one of us and His own request and desire for us to “remain in His love.” As Saint John Mary Vianney said, “This good Savior is so filled with love that He seeks us everywhere.”
Even while Jesus loves us so intensely and seeks us everywhere, sometimes we are like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus that fail to recognize the very Love of Jesus in their midst. Only after they personally encountered Him in the breaking of the bread were their eyes opened and their hearts burned within them (Lk. 24: 31-32). This same inability to recognize Jesus later caused Jesus to exclaim to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, “Love is not loved enough,” as He explained the reason for the crown of thorns around His Sacred Heart. It is our belief as Christians that God has loved us into existence. His very love holds us in existence and if we “remain in His love” by truly loving Him in return, He will love us back to Himself in eternal life! Yes, we are God’s very love thoughts! How amazing that God can love every human being unconditionally and indiscriminately in a love that never ends! You see, even if we choose not to remain in His love, He still loves us, whether here on earth or in the depths of hell. In fact, that is what hell is, the absence of our participation in His love.
How can we know the love of God? Saint John reminds us that we love and know love because God has first loved us (1 Jn. 4:10). In fact, we are not called to love God on our own, but rather, as we are reminded at every celebration of the Mass, we are called to love God through Him, with Him, and in Him (Jesus Christ) in the unity of the Holy Spirit. All honor and glory and, in fact, all love, belong to our heavenly Father forever and ever – again, in a love that never ends!
To “remain in my love” is what gave Saint Paul the confidence to proclaim to the people of Corinth that “the love of Christ impels (possesses) us, once we have come to the conviction that one died for all; therefore, all have died. He indeed died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Cor. 5: 14-15).
This love of God possesses us at our baptism when we die and rise to new life in Christ. From that moment on God gives us the sanctifying grace to “remain in His love” as His adopted sons and daughters. To remain in His love means having that personal and intimate relationship with Love Himself. Affirming this, Cardinal Mercier once wrote to his people, “Every day I want you to simply close your eyes and enter the sanctuary of your baptized soul and there realize that God Himself dwells.” God desires that we love Him as He loves us. To be faithful to the very love of Jesus means not only loving Jesus as a historic figure in time, but loving Him in the fullness of His person and in the way that He asks. Remember, Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through Him (Jn. 14:6). How does He desire that we love Him? He desires our love through knowing Him in Sacred Scriptures, and in His Church, the very Bride of Christ. St. Paul writes beautifully of this fact in Ephesians Chapter 5. Because the Church is the Bride of Christ, our tradition has always seen the Church as our Mother. It makes perfect sense then that Holy Mother Church, like all mothers, has been entrusted with the role of teaching (nurturing), sanctifying (especially in the Sacraments) and governing (loving and guiding us). This is always accomplished through Him, with Him, and in Him in the unity of the Holy Spirit, back to our heavenly Father.
Holy Mother Church has always been faithful to Jesus Christ and the great gift of the Eucharist, which He gave as a gift to His Bride, the Church, the night before He gave His life in love for her. So intense and intimate was His love for us that He desired to remain always with us in the Sacrament of His Love – Holy Communion! In this letter, I will explain to you once again about the Sacrament of His Love, the Eucharist, and encourage you to enter into Holy Communion with Love Himself! May you be amazed by His love anew, may your hearts and minds be enkindled with the fire of His love – the unending love that impels us to love God and neighbor.
And so it is with great joy that I present to you this pastoral letter encouraging you to consider anew, with Mary our Mother, the love in which you are loved by God. As you read this letter, ask Mary to intercede for you that by the power of the Holy Spirit your heart and mind may be opened to the truth of God’s love for you. May His love for you become so personal, so intimate and so intense that it truly possesses and impels you to become intensely Eucharistic. May your attendance at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and Adoration compel you to live lives of perfect charity, as Mary our Mother lived her life in perfect charity, and like Mary, may you remain always in His love!
In the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus,
Rev. Fr. Ted Dudzinski
Pastor
St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church
St. Patrick Catholic Church