Remain in my love: Homily for Thursday, May 22, 2025

What does it mean when Jesus says, “Remain in my love?” At its most important, remaining in the love of Jesus means having a deep, personal relationship with Jesus. Readings for Today.

Remain in my love

When I was one time in a parish, I went on a little undercover mission. I wasn’t dressed in any distinctive way with a habit or a collar, because the undercover mission was to go to a big mega church that was close by to the parish.

I wanted to know what it was like because we had not a small number of parishioners who were double dipping, shall we say. They still came to Catholic Mass, but as one parent said to me, “There are just some weekends I cannot bear the fight with my children, and so we go to the mega church.”

So I wanted to see, well, what is this like? What is it that is drawing some people there? I have to say that in a positive light, they were evangelizers from the moment your tires hit the driveway. Nothing was left to chance. They greeted you. They guided you. Now, when I say mega church, this was a mega church that had its own parking garage. Okay, so their attendance was huge, and they guided you where you parked and so forth.

And then when you got out of the car, I think there were three or four people that greeted me along the way, explaining to me what I might see and so forth. So I walked into this church, and it was nothing at all like I thought.

In many ways, it was like a shopping mall. And what I mean by that is that there was a large, large, I don’t know if I’d call it a hallway, but whatever, there was a large walkway through, and there were all kinds of things in the walkway. There were pamphlets, and there was, if you wanted to get coffee, there was coffee right there in the walkway and so forth.

And on each side, there were a number of different chapels. If you wanted a traditional Protestant service, for example, that was, I don’t know, Chapel 7, and you’d go there. If you wanted more of a coffeehouse experience, that was Chapel 1. If you wanted a praise and worship concert, that was like Chapel 4, and so forth. I mean, any conceivable way you wanted to worship, they had.

And there was real strategy behind everything. As I said, it was just a model for evangelization. They were so good at, not in an obnoxious way, sharing their faith and initiating conversations about the faith.

But generally, their model was this. It was like a funnel. So what I first encountered as I walked in was the top of the funnel. They were looking to capture anyone and everyone in whatever way possible. But the basic model was to ultimately capture enough that you could bring them back into a deeper and more committed faith, which at its very base was a fundamentalist Christianity.

Now, I mention that because I think that that’s also a good analogy for the ministry of Jesus. I mean, if we think of Jesus, he didn’t spend all of his time in the temple. He certainly spent a fair amount of time there, to be sure, but not all of it. He cast a big, wide net.

He had a very large funnel, and he interacted with people. He interacted with tax collectors and sinners and prostitutes and lepers and really significantly dedicated Jewish people, like Nicodemus, for example. The funnel was huge. But we know, and it’s true actually for these mega churches, that while they attract a lot of people at the top, most of them don’t go any deeper in the funnel. They go away. Their staying power is not strong.

I remember a while ago when I was ordained a priest, there was a real concern about the fact that Catholics were leaving the Catholic church to go to fundamentalist churches, and that was true. There were a number of them there.

I think it’s because fundamentalist Christians stress this personal relationship with Jesus. There’s a deep spirituality that is there, and people found that attractive. And it was true. It was really a big concern. I remember we talked about it as priests for a long time, but the research indicated something also that was interesting. Most who left came back.

It was the sacraments. As much as there was a stress on this personal relationship with Jesus, they missed the personal sacramental encounters that were a part of their faith. Now, of course, the most important part on a day like today is that Jesus casts a wide net for you and me, too. He wants us to enter into this deep and powerful relationship of love, but not any old love.

I think sometimes there are people who think that if they believe in Jesus, then they should constantly be filled with peace. They should always be happier than they can possibly imagine, but none of the history of the saints indicates that that’s true.

I didn’t choose to celebrate the option, but today we had the option of celebrating Saint Rita of Cascia, and I was intrigued by it. I almost celebrated it because she was an Augustinian, and if you’re from the Chicago area, you know that the Augustinians sponsor an all-boys school named Saint Rita’s.

I didn’t know anything about her, to be honest, until I looked her up because I thought, “Well, if I am going to preach on Saint Rita, I should know something about her.” She had a very hard life. She wanted, really, to be a person of prayer, maybe even a hermit. Her parents insisted she get married, and through no choice of her own, she was. Her husband was very abusive, and she suffered greatly.

And I’m not saying there’s a good reason to do that, but God brought something wonderful out of it because she became very loving and very kind. She worked to influence the faith life of her husband. He ultimately died, and he died because he was killed.

And she entered a community of sisters. She wasn’t a hermit. They were Augustinian sisters. Of course, I’m intrigued because Pope Leo is an Augustinian. I kidded Brother Augustine that now, “Oh, gosh, all we’re going to hear is Saint Augustine this and Saint Augustine that,” and whatever.

But her experience honed her in the love of Jesus, and she is known, actually, as the patron saint of impossible cases. She remained in the love of God because she was able to see in her life, even in the midst of this terrible suffering, that she was never alone. God was always with her.

And I think that’s what Jesus means when he says, “Remain in my love. Remain in my love. Recognize that I am always with you. I am always calling you to be the type of person I know you can be because I made you.” And if we really remain in the love of God, then we commit ourselves to living in the way that God wants us to live. We keep his commandments because that is the way we demonstrate our love. Let us ask the Lord today to help us to remain in the love of Jesus.

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