We were on vacation last week, and went to mass at a parish that happens to be run by the Disciples of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. This is a Spanish order that focuses on the utter love God has for us, which we focus on in today's feast. Mass was great - but it was also, well, ordinary. And that's a good thing.

 

As a culture, we're used to thinking of love as big, or romantic, or flashy, or all three. But today's scriptures, and today's feast, ask us to emphasize the ways love enters our lives in small ways. In Deuteronomy 7:6-11, Moses emphasizes that God chose Israel not because it was the biggest or flashiest nation - indeed, quite the contrary. But God quite simply loves Israel. There doesn't need to be a reason for that love - at least, not a reason that we will rationally understand - but God loves Israel for who it is.

 

In the gospel (Matthew 11:25-30), Jesus reiterates this point: love isn't earned and it isn't due to being the biggest or most powerful. The smallest and least among us are the ones most likely to recognize God's love precisely because Jesus himself is humble and meek.

 

In the epistle reading (1 John 4:7-16), John speaks about the important aspect of Christian life above all others: to love each other because God is love. If we wish to seek God, we seek love. But as the first two readings suggest, seeking love is about seeing God's love of the small and humble. Easier said than done, sometimes, because we have a propensity for having others like us, and for seeking popularity and power - but these tend to be proportionate to our ability to wow others and appear big and flashy ourselves.

 

Training ourselves to see love in the small and humble means that we learn, every day, to see God in small and ordinary things. Today let us ask God for that grace.

 

- Jana M. Bennett