If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your j0y may be complete. This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. (Today’s Gospel)
The force of Jesus’ words seems centrifugal—from the Father, to me, to you, to one another. A force always pushing away from the center. But the physics teachers in the crowd will remind us all that there is no such thing as centrifugal force. It has long been called the fictitious or false force or even the ghost force. Its definition is in the negative: a non-existent force which is actually the absence of a centripetal force. We are not thrown off the merry-go-round by some outward pushing force called centrifugal, but by our weakness to exert enough centripetal force to hang in there. And what is centripetal force? It is a center seeking net force required to keep moving objects in circular paths around the center. If not met, objects move away from the center in larger curved paths or go off on a tangent.
First Communion 2012
Yesterday, our Second Graders received First Holy Communion. We will publish their names next week for all to see and celebrate.
We teach them to be good and kind, to be courteous and considerate, to be attentive and respectful—all elements of love one another. But yesterday at First Communion, our kids were drawn into that single, most important, center seeking force, which gives ultimate meaning to what we do, especially to what we do well. Without this force in our lives, we wander away on curved paths and go off on tangents, even if good ones.
Yesterday, we were all filled with joy, and Jesus’ prayer is that our joy be complete by filling us with that force of love, which can only live and work in us if we exert all our strength and every effort to come to the center. God!
Love,
Deacon Charlie
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