and tangible love for Jesus that flows out of him.
Fr. Joe’s love for the Lord had a powerful effect on my friend Danae as well. In high school, Danae was attracted to a non-Catholic, evangelical brand of Christianity and fell away from her Catholic faith. Ironically, it was precisely Danae’s deep love for Jesus that left her susceptible to wandering. Providentially, it was a Catholic, evangelical priest’s deep love for Jesus that helped to bring her back. Danae said:
I just felt like Catholicism was about rules and not about Jesus. I was attracted to my Protestant friends’ intimacy with the Lord. I didn’t see many Catholics who had that (I failed to notice that many of them did—I just wasn’t looking in the right places). The Protestants seemed to have the lingo, and they knew their Bibles so well. I didn’t know any Catholics who read the Bible (again, I failed to notice that we read from it every day at Mass, not to mention the Divine Office). I just wanted a church that emphasized a relationship with Jesus. And whenever I had questions about the teachings of the Catholic Church, there were never answers that satisfied me.
Danae’s faith in Christ was vibrant, but she couldn’t see relevance in her Catholic upbringing. She continued:
Once I left home for college, I stopped attending Mass, except for occasionally playing piano for the student Mass. After my freshman year, I was home for the summer and my best friend and I wanted to start a youth group. My parents suggested we contact a new priest in our parish. I had no interest in a Catholic youth group, but for some reason I gave that priest a call. He was so excited about our idea because he’d been praying to the Holy Spirit to start a young adult group. I explained that we weren’t keen on the Catholic faith. He said that was okay, he would just meet with us and talk. That began a summer of meetings where I encountered the Catholic faith in a way that I never had before. Fr. Joe talked in that “evangelical style” but also answered every single one of our questions with facts and information that could not be disputed.
Danae and her friend ran head-on into the reality that Catholicism is vibrant and alive. Fr. Joe offered comprehensive, intelligent responses to all of Danae’s questions, demonstrating that faith and reason work seamlessly together in the Catholic Church. He made a tangible difference in Danae’s life:
… he showed me what it meant to have a relationship with the Lord in the Catholic Church. It’s hard to argue against the beauty and awesomeness of the truth that is found there. Hard to argue that you can best have a relationship with the Lord through the life-giving sacraments, especially the Eucharist. Basically, God used a holy priest (and other great witnesses) to open my eyes to what was always right in front of me. He helped my head and my heart understand that the Catholic Church is all about Jesus and that the greatest intimacy we can have is receiving his precious Body and Blood.
Danae would later make a similar difference in the faith of her future husband. She marks her friendship with Fr. Joe as a turning point.
Walking the Walk
Simply by living the faith that they love, holy priests attract our attention. As Pope Francis said:
We know well that with Jesus life becomes richer, and that with him it is easier to find meaning in everything. This is why we evangelize. A true missionary, who never ceases to be a disciple, knows that Jesus walks with him, speaks to him, breathes with him, works with him. He senses Jesus alive with him in the midst of the missionary enterprise. Unless we see him present at the heart of our missionary commitment, our enthusiasm soon wanes and we are no longer sure of what it is that we are handing on; we lack vigor and passion. A person who is not convinced, enthusiastic, certain and in love, will convince nobody.7
Fr. Scott, another priest who became a friend, is a humble, holy man who is convinced, enthusiastic, certain, and in love. From the moment my family and I met him, we knew we were in the presence of someone who loves Jesus with his whole heart, mind, soul, and strength. That love is seen in the little things.
Over one of the first dinners at our house (and he became a regular guest), Fr. Scott and I talked about writing and blogging. Though he had once maintained a blog, by the time we met he had deleted his blog from cyberspace. It was clear he loved writing, so I was perplexed as to why he’d given up a harmless writing outlet.
But it wasn’t always harmless, he countered. The blog world, even among religious, can degenerate into pettiness and competition. Who is funniest in the blogosphere? The smartest? Who’s snarkier, the most clever? Who is quickest with wise and holy assessments of what’s happening in the Catholic world?
Fr. Scott is the first to say that it’s possible to blog without succumbing to such temptations, but he felt that when he wrote online about the issues he was passionate about, it was too easy to be personally tempted to descend into a lack of charity. So he decided to bow out. Though his blog had gathered a robust following, the popularity and kudos weren’t worth the dangers to his soul. He hit the “Delete” button. Blog gone. Peace of mind returned. It was my first encounter with his witness of detachment.
Fr. Scott doesn’t deliberately witness about simplicity and humility, but his life speaks volumes. He drives a simple car and prefers a simple home. At one point, he was even embarrassed by his kitchen. The hundred-year-old rectory in which he lived needed renovation. His parishioners knew Fr. Scott loved to cook. Donations were raised and the tiny, old kitchen was demolished and replaced with a shiny new one featuring state of the art appliances, marble countertops, and ample storage space. It was a chef’s dream but Fr. Scott was a bit abashed, even though he knew it would benefit many priests who would come after him.
Although he loves to read and loves books—he once owned twenty-three copies of his favorite book, Pride and Prejudice—he no longer owns more possessions than he can pack into his car. His priority is his love for God and God’s people and for spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Living in a materially simple way helps him do that.
A Thing Like a Love Affair
To say, “Fall in love with Jesus!” as if it were just another piece of advice sounds facile. But the reality stands: Love is the most powerful witness. Of St. Francis of Assisi, G. K. Chesterton said, “To this great mystic his religion was not a thing like a theory but a thing like a love affair.”8
A love affair with God may sound odd. I once saw an article in which the writer objected to “love affair language” because, he said, “Jesus is not my boyfriend!” And while it’s true that we don’t want to diminish the nature of our relationship with God in any way, there is nothing juvenile or belittling about the imagery of God as our Beloved. Such imagery is as old as the Song of Solomon. Both ancient Jewish and Christian traditions have likened the marriage relationship to our relationship with Our Lord. St. Bernard of Clairvaux said:
To love so ardently then is to share the marriage bond; she cannot love so much and not be totally loved, and it is in the perfect union of two hearts that complete and total marriage consists. Or are we to doubt that the soul is loved by the Word first and with a greater love?9
There is nothing small or pedestrian about the breadth and depth of love God wants from us. It’s true that this love affair doesn’t mean we’ll wander around in a giddy stupor. Just as in marriage, authentic love is more than the infatuation we feel when we first fall in love. Love is sustained and grows deeper through repeated acts of the will and through lifelong commitment. The same is true of our faith in and love for Jesus Christ.
We fall in love, commit, and promise to live that commitment for the rest of our lives. Love is the anchor—in both marriage and faith—that will hold us in place when dryness, boredom, suffering, and hard times set in. The initial consolations of both earthly
