A few years back, while attending a nephew’s Lutheran confirmation service a sentence in the Pastor’s sermon that day stayed with me and is something I pray about often. In his sermon, the pastor spoke of how we are all loved sinners. Something we Jesuits often teach. The Pastor told this story of how he was a Harley-Davidon rider, and that he had this biker friend who had this great tattoo. The tattoo was on his friend’s left forearm, the Pastor continued, and was of a cross with the words ‘Saints had a past’ circling across the top, and ‘sinners have a future’ around the bottom. The lives of the saints, as we come to know them, well we know through their stories that they weren’t always perfect vessels of grace. So, with God’s love, loved sinners all, we too can become every day more and more saintly. We too can become Saints! How great is that!
Yet, sadly, I don’t know about you, but I am not sure this is the world that God wishes or envisions for our souls. This is not God’s wish for how we are to relate with one another, we are not too good at loving ourselves and loving our neighbor, the call for saints who love with the love of Jesus Christ is needed today more than ever. The world’s heart still beats with injustice, hatred, and so much violence and other hating. Look at a newspaper to prove me wrong. Saints have a past, and sinners have a future with Christ.
Our liturgy of the word today makes no bones about it – we are called to, and this from the very mouth of Jesus, love our neighbors as ourselves. In our gospel, Jesus incarnates the love of God in a literal and very real way, and integrates this love with the call to love in ‘deeds’ our neighbor, all of our neighbors, everyone. For even saints have a past, and sinners, each one of us, well, with Christ we have a future filled with hope and holy transformation.
We all walk this journey called life. And on this journey each one of us faces bumps and bruises, hardships, and loss, of deep and abiding sometimes seemingly unbearable suffering. Through all of that, then, hurting souls ourselves, how can we not then be there for one another, lifting one another up, with actions of love and compassion?
God’s love urges all of us to see our sisters and brothers, not as aliens, but, as our reading from Exodus helps us to understand, as fellow souls, who are wandering with us, all of us together, through the deserts of all our lives. Saints have a past, sinners always and forever a new future with Christ. To love, not just in words, but deeds, as Saint Paul this day confirms, is hard, especially when those we are called to love are strange to us, foreign, alien. Yet, who knows the endless possibility and hope for transformation, our love, when we love in our deeds, of how that love can make a difference, and make a difference for the good, for God.
May we then find the capacity to rejoice, as we love our God with all of our hearts, and our sisters and brothers as ourselves, and may we hold these words from the poet and philosopher, Henri-Frédéric Amiel, in our hearts as our forever mantra – “Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with us. Oh be swift to love, make haste to be kind.”
Rev. Kent Beausoleil, SJ
Rev. Beausoleil, SJ, PhD, has lived in the Creighton Jesuit Community since 2020. Currently he ministers as the Market Vice President for Mission Integration (NE/IA) for CommonSpirit/CHI Health while continuing his ministry as a mission leader at five local area hospitals: Immanuel Medical Center, and Lasting Hope in Omaha, and Mercy Corning, Mercy Council Bluffs, and Missouri Valley in Iowa. Joining the Jesuits in 1997 and ordained in 2007 his Jesuit formation focused on three types of ministries: healthcare, spiritual direction and pastoral counseling, and higher education focusing on young adult spiritual development.
Rev. Kent A. Beausoleil, SJ has a PhD in Student Affairs from Miami University in Oxford, OH. He also possesses master’s degrees in public administration, philosophy, divinity and education. He loves to walk and be out in nature, cross-stitch and bake.
The ability to reflect on other contributors’ reflections as well as being able to provide a personal monthly spiritual reflection has become an important and integral part of my daily prayer.
