“And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love. Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.” The well-known song, written in the 1960’s by Fr. Peter Scholtes, echoes this weekend’s Gospel. 60 years later and 2,000 years into Christianity, the song might seem trite – sweet images of walking side-by-side and hand-in hand. In truth, though, it is so much more. It is, like the Gospel, the call for a revolution.

Christ encourages his disciples to a revolutionary love, one unheard of in their time — a love that gives expecting nothing in return, a love that is neither earned nor deserved. Love those who hate you. Love those who hurt you. Forgive the unforgivable and have mercy on the merciless.

There is nothing trite in this love. It is so unexpected, so counter-cultural, so revolutionary that it sets us apart. It is a generous, self-sacrificing, humbling love that makes the world wonder, “What is up with that?”

There is nothing timid in this love. It is bold, strong, and steadfast. This love calls for the courage to stand in the wake of hate, cruelty, and injustice. This love calls for the fortitude to speak God’s truth even when it’s unpopular – not to judge or condemn, but to challenge and correct.

This kind of love is downright supernatural; we are not capable of it on our own. Only with the strength of grace, only through Christ can we love like this, and when we do, He shines through. This love should set us apart so the troubled world might notice and long to know more.

Indeed, by the grace of God, they will know we are Christians by our love — by our humble, self-sacrificing, unexpected, bold, steadfast, merciful, revolutionary love.

-Pamela Kavanaugh, Diocesan Publications

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TREASURES FROM OUR TRADITION

Saturday, February 22nd, on our liturgical calendar appears at first to be a feast day for a piece of furniture: the Chair of Peter. In fact, it functions as a kind of ecclesial “Presidents’ Day.” The church day points to Peter, but just as Presidents’ Day began with Washington’s birthday and now includes all presidents, this day celebrates the Petrine ministry: Peter’s apostolic presidency passed down in our tradition as an essential aspect of Catholic identity. Maybe the day should be subtitled “Popes’ Day.” As for the “chair” itself, it can be traced to the house of Priscilla and Aquila in ancient Rome. Peter sat there to instruct the faithful and to receive the newly baptized. When Christianity became legal, the house was transformed into a place for public prayer, and soon the chair was transported to the tomb of St. Peter on the Vatican hill. Over the centuries, the hill was leveled, but the tomb and the chair were preserved.

Today, it is said that the chair from that ancient Roman community is raised high above the altar in St. Peter’s, clearly visible just beneath the oval window showing the descent of the Holy Spirit. The symbol of the chair reminds the current occupant of the Petrine office of his duties to shepherd the flock by clear teaching and by building up the unity of the Church. —Rev. James Field, Diocesan Publications