Loving as Jesus Loved

The main objective for followers of Christ is to become — well … more Christlike. How can we determine whether we are achieving that goal? We may be tempted to tick off things we’ve done, such as the number of times we’ve attended Mass, donated to humanitarian causes, or read spiritual books. However, Abbot Dan Nobles, OSB, has a different criterion. As he says in his blog, “…as we are transformed into the likeness of Christ, we become hospitable.”

Artwork by Ade Bethune

Jesus taught and healed and ate with others indiscriminately, because his mission was to reveal God’s love for everyone. Did he call out hypocrites and cheats and those who acted unjustly? Yes, but he also dialogued with them, engaged them through parables, and dined with them — because if his Father loved them, he was called to love them too.

Abbot Nobles further notes that the willingness to be hospitable, even when it’s tedious or inconvenient, “is the fruit of a transformed heart that first and foremost is set on being with God.” If we want to be one with God, as Jesus was, we need to be hospitable to those whom God loves (that is, everyone), as Jesus did.

Jesus went so far as to say that whatsoever we do to strangers, the hungry, the sick, and prisoners, we do to him. By extension, as Abbot Nobles says, “If I see others as Christ, then my time spend with them is merely time spent with him.”

Seeing others as Christ doesn’t come easily to most of us. However, when we attempt to put on the mind and heart of Christ by intentionally practicing hospitality to the point that it becomes instinctual, we will not only see him but, as he promised, we will live in him and he in us. As the disciples on the road to Emmaus discovered, the key to this transformation is to offer hospitality.

St. Joseph: Now and at the Hour of Our Death

Linotype by Ade Bethune

St. Joseph has two feast days on the Church calendar: March 19, when he is honored for being the spouse of Mary and the earthly father of Jesus, and May 1, when he is acknowledged as the patron of workers. Although a special day is not set aside to recognize St. Joseph’s role as the patron of those seeking a happy death, many people seek his intercession for this reason.

I thought of this when I read the following beautiful passage from the book The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich. After leading quite a remarkable life, the main character, Agnes, feels death coming upon her:

“I am going, I am going, she thought. Underneath her and before her, a wide plain of utter emptiness opened, Trusting, yearning, she put her arms out into that emptiness. She reached as far as she could, farther than she was capable, held her hands out until at last a bigger, work-toughened hand grasped hold of hers. With a yank, she was pulled across.”

One of the joys of literature is the different ways we can interpret the story: The person who grasped Agnes’ hand could have been another character in the book (her deceased husband, a farmer named Berndt), or it could have been Jesus, with whom Agnes had a close relationship, or it could have been St. Joseph, patron of those seeking a happy death, whose carpenter’s hands would have been work-toughened. But I find it comforting to think of St. Joseph being ready to grasp our hand and yanking us into the heavenly realm when we reach out into the seeming emptiness of death with trust and yearning. St. Joseph, pray for us!