This weekend we have The Appeal. And in your, pews, there are these little envelopes, on this envelope, there's a prayer. At the conclusion of my homily today. I will ask all of us to join us in that prayer. 

This means I'm going to be asking you for money, right? So you understand that. But I want you to know that I'm going to start with a legitimate homily, okay? And then at the end of the homily, I'm going to propose that this is one way, one way to respond. Okay. So we know where we're going today. 

And I have to give a homily for many reasons. One, because we have two at Sunday, but two, because these readings are amazing. And I don't want to miss them. And in fact, I think they also help us understand this opportunity and every other opportunity we have to give, whether it's of our time, our talents, our treasure, whatever the case may be.

And we begin with, the second reading, which is arguably my favorite passage in all of Sacred Scripture, the first letter of Saint John, chapter four. And in this we hear three words that I believe is the perfect death definition of God. "God is love." We know that God literally is a communion of love, the Most Holy Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Portrayed beautifully in our mural with our Lord Jesus, the eternal Son of God, the two hands of the father above him, the Holy Spirit, portrayed with the symbol of the dove in between for all eternity. The Father loves the Son for all eternity. The Son loves the Father in a perfect love. That is the person of the Holy Spirit. God is an eternal communion of love. God did not need to create anyone or anything in order to love. His very nature is to love. 

Creation, in fact, flows from his goodness, from his love he had no need to create. He wasn't lacking in anything. He wasn't bored. It's the it's the just diffusion of his love that creates time and space. All of us are an extension of this communion of love with his. The Book of Genesis tells us that God created us, male and female, and created us in his image. And so we know that God is love were created in his image, were created for love.

In our gospel today, our Lord as well. One of my favorites is this as the father loves me so I also love you and I encourage you to just receive these words. Maybe we've heard them, but receive them as the father loves me so I also love you. Try to comprehend what that love is. This is a perfect, eternal, divine, complete, infinite love.

That's the love the father has for the son. That's the love the son has for you and for me. Receive his love. That's the beginning that Saint John says we cannot love until we are first loved. And then our Lord gives us this commandment. "This is my commandment. Love one another as I love you.”

Love one another as I love you. We are called to an incredible love. In fact, if we're honest, a love that doesn't reside naturally in our hearts, a love that we have to come to in the Mass, in our poverty, to be renewed in this love so that we can share this love more and more. In the history of the church, our sense various times and places, our sense of God's love, we struggle to fully appreciate that. One particular time was the 17th century in France, afflicted by a heresy known as Jansenism, which so over-emphasized God's justice, that any notion of God's love was completely eclipsed. In the midst of that, in a convent in Paray-le-Monial France, the visitation order founded by the patron of our dioceses, Saint Francis de sales, who so beautifully wrote about God's love, a sister now known as Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, began to receive visions of our Lord, a series of visions beginning December 27th, 1673, and extending into 1674. We are celebrating the 350th anniversary of those visions. These apparitions. I really believe they are encounters with the risen Lord. This year, the 350th anniversary, a Jubilee year. 

And our Lord reveals to her his heart, his heart burning with love, his heart with consumed with love, so that to break the false notion of God that had gripped the people in this heresy known as Jansenism, this deep desire of our Lord's heart that we know his love deeply. And he also revealed that that there was a pain in his heart when we don't respond to his love, when we respond with coldness or indifference, or ingratitude, that his heart literally feels that that he has made himself vulnerable in this relationship. Vulnerable comes from the Latin word vulnera, which means wound, able to be wounded. His heart is able to be wounded because he has made himself vulnerable in his relationship with us. And I don't know about you, but that makes me almost uncomfortable to think about that the eternal Son of God has made himself vulnerable, but this is the depth of his sacred humanity, the reality of his heart that he longs for a real relationship. And just like you and I experience pain when we love someone and it's not reciprocated. So, he too he feels pain when his love is not reciprocated, he reveals his heart is real. And from that comes this beautiful devotion of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the one that we know today, one that special to our parish. In the depth of the darkness of the pandemic, the Feast of Divine Mercy, April 2020, we enthroned our parish to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in an empty church.

That image, a visible sign in the back of our church of that enthronement. And then we start, as you recall, a nine-month novena in the fall of 2020, concluding in May of 2021, preparing for the month of the Sacred Heart of June, in  which we consecrate our parish to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. And that fall, as I was trying to explain to our school children what it means to have a devotion of the Sacred Heart, I was in the kindergarten room very beginning of the school year. These children are just beginning their time in school. Trying to explain the devotion of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. And I saw them looking at me, and they were and I was looking at them, and I thought, what am I going to say? How can I get them to understand the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus? They don't even know what a devotion is. What how do I communicate? And in that moment, I think our Lord gave me kind of an inspiration. Three phrases, nine words that I think summarizes the devotion to the Sacred Heart. 

First, receive his love. We cannot love until we are loved. 

At the heart of the readings today, receive his love. Sometimes I feel like I don't deserve it. I've done this, I've done that, or we have this false notion that love has to be earned. This is not a love that we can earn. This is not a love that we deserve. We simply have to receive it as a gift and experience the gratitude. 

Receive his love, return his love. He desires a real relationship with us, a real friendship. He said in the gospel, "I no longer call you servants, but friends." 

Return his love. And then share his love. This relationship with our Lord is not just simply between me and him and through him. The father in the spirit. But as we grow in this relationship of love, as we receive his love and return his love, we have to share his love. There has to be, if you will, a horizontal dimension to our life, to our faith. It flows out of this relationship. Share his love, our parish shares the love of Christ and so many beautiful ways we are unable to quantify it. We rarely talk about it, but it's the beautiful reality that your love literally has impacted the world in so many different ways.

Father Emmanuel sent me a picture of a school recently built in Ghana. Largely because of your generosity, we've helped to build a convent in India. We've done all sorts of amazing things, your kindness, your concern, your compassion for those in need in our own community. Through WARM or Saint Vincent de Paul, we have shared his love in so many different ways. Not just financially, but also time and talent in the parish outside of the parish, volunteering, family life, friends, so many different ways in which you share his love on a daily basis.

And for that I give thanks. Twice a year I'm going to ask you to share his love in a very specific way by virtue of giving money. Yes, there are many opportunities to give, but twice here I'm going to ask you. One is our annual parish offertory appeal, and I thank you for your generous support of that, your weekly giving or monthly whatever the case may be, whether in the collection basket or electronically. That's what funds our mission here. 

And then once a year, I'm going to ask you to give to The Appeal. It's a way for us to say we understand we're part of a larger church, and we want to help fund that church and the mission of Christ in the 23 counties of the Diocese of Columbus. And as we hear this invitation, it's important for us to understand we are an abundantly blessed community. As we read the scriptures about the parables of those given the talents. We're the one with ten talents. We're the one that has the great responsibility. What are we going to do with this abundance that God has given us? This abundance of talent in so many different ways? We can have the capacity to make a positive impact on the mission of Christ in the church throughout the 23 counties of our diocese.

That's what this appeal offers us an opportunity to support vocations in Catholic education and social concerns, and Catholic Charities and priestly vocations, and consecrated life and marriage life, and all of the things that go to the very basis of a thriving society. We can help share in the mission of Christ in His Church, in these 23 counties, in a special way, through The Appeal.

We have a big goal this year. It's roughly around $450,000. And then we've added another 50,000 goal to help us, because every dollar over and beyond our goal comes back to the parish. A 50,000 goal to help us replace the gym floor of our old gym. And above and beyond that, all monies returned to the parish will help fund our mission. And so I'm going to ask you to prayerfully consider your gift, how you might participate. One very simple way that I know we can achieve this goal is if 500 families in our parish are willing to donate $1,000, and that may be a level of giving that you haven't given in the past. But if you're honest, you know that you can do it.

And if you're one of those families, and I believe we have 500 families who are in that position, I ask you to prayerfully make that sacrificial gift. And I want you to know that I'm willing to do the same thing. So I have pledged $1,000, a sacrificial level of giving for me, an increase from past giving, because I'm not going to ask you to do something I'm not willing to do. 

I know that not everybody is able to give it that level. And so if you're able to give at the $200, the $500 level or the $250 level, or the $100 level or the $10 level, whatever you able to give, great. We're also hoping for new participation. We had 922 or so households give last year. We'd like to see that number increased.

For those who gave, Thank you. For those who give to our parish offertory, Thank you. You're the reason why our mission accomplished is here. You help us extend that mission to the diocese. For those who haven't given, I ask you to prayerfully consider your gift. Above and beyond that goal, again, returned to the parish.

If you've already made a pledge and you think, well, I made a pledge, it wasn't $1,000, don't worry, you're allowed to increase your pledge. And now I invite you to join me in praying this prayer on this envelope. You can take the envelope home, pray about your gift. You can return the envelope in any future collection or to the office.

Or you can make your pledge or gift online. You can make your gift over a period of months. If you make a pledge to a monthly gift. And together we pray this prayer beginning with Gracious God.

Gracious God, we are forever grateful for your unconditional love and mercy manifested in the Sacred Heart of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Thank you for the many blessings we have received and continue to receive through the power of the Holy Spirit. Make us aware of your mercy and grace in our lives, and open our hearts to the ministry of The Appeal. You inspire us to respond to your love by responding to the needs of our brothers and sisters in the Diocese of Columbus. Help us to share our blessings with them. We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord.