Here I want to share my love story with you as we celebrate the priesthood Sunday. Fr. Dale and I went to the presbyteral convocation from Tuesday evening to Friday morning last week. About three hundred priests from the diocese gathered to listen to the speaker archbishop Niederauer from San Francisco and share brotherhood in prayer and meal. Can you imagine three hundred men praying, laughing, singing together? There were full of life, joy and fun all around. And then we had a penance service in the second night. Watching old priests to stand for the confession and coming back with tearful eyes and singing for a priest’s sixty-six birthday all together, I was deeply moved because these men showed me what love is all about. At some points, these men dedicated their lives to the love of Christ and have tried to live out their promise. Old or young, intelligent or not, attractive or not, capable or not, these men are like us—weak, selfish, sinful and need of God’s help always. Like “earthen vessels” that was the theme of the convocation, they strive to keep their life-long commitment in the love of Christ. Each man’s love stories were there through their faces, talks, eats, smiles and greetings. I was happy as well as proud to be one of them.
One time, Dorothy Day said, “Love is harsh and dreadful thing!” She is right because if someone tries to love others with all his or her heart, it will be harsh and dreadful. So the speaker at the convocation said, “You should be always in love. In other words, you are always in trouble.” Love is not easy but worth. Usually love is messy because it is not controllable. We cannot grasp what love is because God is love and it is mystery. As a young priest, I admit I need to suffer more to learn love—what it means to love with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind and how I become compassionate—literally means suffering with others like Jesus. It is a process of becoming human, so everyone is in it.
We all are main actors or actresses in our love stories. But there is only one master in that stage; it is Jesus Christ. He is the one who loved us first and gave it all to that love. So his love still compels us. And I witness those three hundred men are the examples of that love. Where is your love? How is your love story going? Is there any room for an unselfish love, any room for Christ?
Now I invite a young man who has found his love in Christ. Let us listen to his love story.