Father Larry Richards by Karna Swanson 10th February 2012 Category 5 moral questions - virtues What does it mean

to say I love you. My whole thing is what does it mean when Christ says I love you. Hes the one that teaches us that reality, and he says that when I love you I give up my life for you. Thats why you gotta be more concerned about the other person than you are about yourself, and that has to be very practical, every day more concerned about the other person than about yourself . Dont say I love you to anyone unless you are willing to give your life up for them. If youre not willing to give your life for them, then its a lie. Thats the essence of it, when Jesus, the God the Father, said he loved us, he gave us his son for us, when Jesus said he loved us, he gave his life for us, this is the process of emptying ones self out, and when we do that, again the scriptures are clear, in my own life, and in the life of others, when we give our life away from others, thats when you really find life. I remember in City of Joy, and I love the way it ends, the one line at the end of the movie, All that is not given, is lost. And so the point of our lives, of course, is to give our lives away. If we dont, we lose it, and if we do, we get it forever. And so its the opposite of what the world says. So often the world tells us that love is about how I feel today. Well, not even close. You can feel that you dont like somebody today, and get married to somebody, and look over and say I dont like you today, but you still love them. Its part of the reality. Youve given your life for them. Speaking to youth: What is love? Give your life to something greater than yourself. When it comes to love we kind of get lost, and it starts with loving God, we follow God because we love him, we dont follow him because we are afraid to go to Hell, its just Lord, I love you, and when you love somebody, you gladly give away your life for them. So that begins with God first, because that starts with us, and then the best thing we can do is get out of the way, sometimes, and just let God love through us. What is needed in ones heart, I believe, is love. And we try to have other people fill this deep need in us, but they can only fill it partly because they are all finite human beings. The only one who can fill the deepest need in our heart is God, who is beyond finite, he is infinite. He can fill us again and again, so completely, with his love, that we overflow, then, with his love, and bring it to other people. So other people cant fill that emptiness, only God can, and then when we are filled with this love of God, then we can truly love other people the way he wants us to love him. Sometimes we think of God as this big Ogre in the sky, we dont say that, but we think it. God is waiting for me to fall, or waiting for something to happen, and he jumps on me, well God does everything in his power to save us, love us, and he cant do anything more than what hes done, so when we come to know that we become the instrument of love to other people. I just think thats a life-long goal, and that its something to start especially when you are young. Searching for true love [Love] is all about giving yourself, which is the opposite of what the world says. We all intuitively know that, you know, we know that thats inside of us. But at the same time we dont live it, because the flesh, if you will, takes over, and just like when someone is hungry, and they want food, they dont really care what it is, theyll eat anything. Again, Mother Teresa used to say, people are so hungry in India, that they would go around and pick up dog dung and eat it, to try and fill up the emptiness. I think young people, and all people, are so hungry for love, that they try and fill it up with all these things, which are counterfeit, and garbage, and they were not filled. So we gotta truly experience the love of God, and then we give it to others.

Starting point for love I always tell people that prayer has to be the starting point, and not just prayer of saying prayers, but prayer of being in Gods presence. I like to tell people, a good way to pray is to take five minutes a day, and you start off with Im sorry, and get rid of the things that keep you from him, because when we are in love with anyone, we hurt them, so we tell God were sorry everyday, and then we surrender ourselves to him, because true love means to surrender. I give myself to you. Thats what love is. And then the third part of that is, you just close your eyes, and you just ask God of the universe to hold you. And then for three minutes of five you just sit there in the arms of God and you just put your head on his chest like John the Evangelist did at the Last Supper, and you listen to his heartbeat. And there, every time his heart beats, God of the Universe says I love you, I love you. And once you experience true love, then you can be true love in the world. Then again, I dont think most people, especially Catholics, have come to the point where they have experience true love. We just go around trying to be good people, trying to live a moral life, trying to obey the commandments, instead of trying to be people who respond to a God who loves us with love, and how that overflows to other people. So prayer has to be...and not just prayer of saying prayers, but prayer of letting God of the Universe hold you and being in his presence everyday. Again, I tell people, if you find prayer a burden, then youre really mixed up about what prayer is, prayer isnt I gotta go do this, I gotta spend my time with God, prayer is to spend time with the person I love, wed go running to that if we see prayer as that. People see prayer as going to the gym They arent supposed to (laugh), but again, its not a relationship. So, thats where that becomes a relationship with a God that loves us. Once that love becomes a reality in our lives, ... so just think about the people who are the most loving people, in our day, Mother Teresa, I was just reading the book by Fr. Leo Masburgh, and he talks about Mother Teresa, she was talking to the sisters one day and she said I can actually say that the only thing Ive never had to confess in my life is that Ive never judged anyone. And I thought, Holy Cow! To never judge anyone! And the sisters look at her and say how can you say that, Mother? And she said, Because if I judge them, I cant love them. OK, so kill me now! Wow! So, heres one of the most loving people in the world, that was always more concerned about others than herself, and thats why we hold her up so often, because its almost, wow, how do we get that way, well, in her prayer. And even if you think about it, for all in her 50 years, she only had five weeks of consolation, where she knew she was loved, and later she had a lot of darkness, but she kept doing it, she kept loving, because of what she experienced in the beginning, but then she kept loving even if she didnt feel anything from it. She loved because that is what love is. Surrender [12:50] The whole book is about being in a relationship with God. Its about establishing peace in your heart when you finally come to know you are loved and you can surrender yourself to a God who loves you more than you could ever love yourself, and thats where that trust comes in. [...] When you surrender yourself to the God of the universe, youre making a big act, and youre giving yourself to him completely. And when you do that, then you have peace. And the thing is about experiencing the life-changing power of doing Gods will, so its not just about going out and doing Gods will, its about knowing that his will is for my good, and the good of the whole world. Its like the Blessed Mother, and shes the real image here. When she was confronted with the will of the Father, she said Fiat (I want what you want). And because she said yes to the will of God, she brought life to herself and life to the world: Salvation to herself and salvation to the world. And when we say yes to God, we become the instruments of life and salvation, and in that very process we experience peace. [14:05] We always say that prayer and we love that prayer: Make me an instrument of your peace. Everybody -- Catholics, Protestants, Jews -- everybody loves that prayer. But, if youre an instrument of peace, peace has to go through you before it can go to somebody else. So some people never have peace in their heart, and they are praying this prayer, but they are not allowing themselves to experience the

peace that they can give to others. Again, when we surrender ourselves compeltly to the will of the father, then we experience that peace, and then we can be the instruments and the instruments of love. Its about relationship, its about stopping just going through the motions of being Catholic or Christian, and really entering into this with our lives, and then we can transform. We are social beings [15:00] Definitely. Lets say you are in love with them. You give your life to them. If you get married to someone, you give yourself to them completely, and you almost become a slave to them, if you are really in love. You are always more concerned about them, and you are always trying to make them happy and do things for them. Well, why isnt that the way we are with God? Well, we are always like, this God is out to get us. As long as we are doing good things, God is happy with us. And as soon as we mess up, which we all do, of course, and then God is mad with us. And we have this image that Gods love is conditional, and its not. Its the last thing his love is. And yet the God of the universe gives us what we want -- thats how amazing his love is, and if its not him, and thats ok, Im not going to force myself on you, and if its not me, thats OK. But the God of the universe, who loves us with everything, he just wants to know that there is nothing we could ever do to make him stop us loving us. And if we can come to that, then Im free. Now, I be you love me, and that changes us. Anthony Demelo, Jesuit, wrote a book called Song of the Bird, and one of the stories there is about a man who is nuerotic and everybody told him he was neurotic and he had to change, and he knew he had to change, and his best friend comes to him and tells him you know, youre neurotic, you have to change, and he answered, Yes, I know. But he couldnt change. And then his best friend comes up to him again and says you know, I love you as you are. Dont change. And miracles of miracles, what happened, he changed. The reality, with all of us. When Jesus met the woman, and she was caught in adultry, he didnt start yelling at her and screaming at her, and tell her that you are breaking the commandment of God and you are damned and need to be stoned, like everybody else [was saying to her]. [17:00] He loved her where she was at. And then he says, Go and sin no more. So its love that frees us to not sin. Thats the reality. But again, most people never experience that in their own lives, and thats what the book is trying to get people to experience. Life is not about just doing what is right, its about loving others. [17:44] You can be an atheist and do what is right, and that doesnt make you a Christian. So again, we have good people who are going through the motions and going to Church on Sunday, and they are no different from atheists. They are going through the motions, living the commandments, and thats good, but its not relationship. Its about love, its about experiencing love and giving love. So that is what the book is challenging people to do. Three things people can do to be better lovers. [18:16] The first thing you must do is be a person of prayer. And that has to be the core. The second thing is when you are praying for others or being a person of prayer of experiencing love, then I say you have to practically give away your life every day. So what I tell people is I encourage people to put on their mirrors everyday, three words, I am third. And remind themselves that God is first, others are second, and I am third. I need to be last, its a life of servant hood. So you go to bed every night and you think, go through an examination of conscience and think: Did I do at least one unselfish act for somebody else today. If the answer is no, then wow, you wasted your life in Christ today, you only lived for yourself. And so it makes it practical, and because people sit there and talk about oh, Im very loving, but how are you loving that you are more concerned about others, how does that look in your life, show me. Do you do unselfish acts everyday. Do I do unselfish acts everyday? And its those little things that make that real. [19:18] And then my big thing is, if you love people, you need to tell people that you love them. People

that are in America today, and especially older generations, never said the words I love you. Yet Jesus tells us the command of love in John 13:34 and 35, people will know you are my disciples because you love me, because you love one another. And then in John 15, he sits there and says, John 15:9, as the Father has loved me, so I love you. So here is Jesus, telling us that he loves us, and then in 16 and 17 of Chapter 15, he says, now love one another as I have loved you. And so when he tells us that, then Jesus, who loves us, and tells us he loves us, and then he commands us that we need to do the same thing. So we need to tell the people we love that we love them. And how often, and Ive dealt with High School kids throughout my 23 years, its one of my largest ministries, how many kids are dying inside to hear the words I love you, and parents dont always get that. I always tell people if Im doing a mission or something, I say, listen, you ought to make it a promise the rest of your life to tell your wife, your kid, your husband, that you love them, every single day. Because you dont know when will be the last time you ever see them. So every time, the last thing to say to anybody, is I love you, when its people you love. Then you have no regrets when you drop dead one day. Why is that important to tell people you love them? [20:52] Because its the deepest need in peoples heart. People always feel that nobody really loves me as I am, so when you tell people that you are doing the command of Christ, who commanded it, but you are also [...] Again, I had a kid who came to me, and we were getting ready to go see a movie or something, and I turn around, and Im typing on a typewriter, and he starts to cry, and I say, whats the matter, and hes 18 years old, and he said, Father, Id do anything if my dad would just tell me once that he loved me. Thats the only thing he ever wanted. And his father showed him, he went to all his games and everything else, and then 15 years after that, he called me and said, Father, can you come over, my dad is dying, and I went over and annointed him, and a little later his father died, and the next day, I say to this grown man, and I say did your dad ever tell you that he loved you. And this big man started to shake and sob uncontrolably, and he said, never, Father. The only thing this boy, and later man, ever wanted, was for his father to tell him that he loved him. And that was never spoken. So I think that its just a need, after that person is gone, you need to have that memory. [22:10] I tell people, when I go on a mission, I tell them ... I encourage you right now to write a letter to the people you love and put it into writing that you love them and why, so that after you are gone, or after they are gone, you know that you wrote them something, they have something, in their hands. Every week here in my parish, when I write a bulletin article, the last thing I ever say is, in the bulletin article, is remember that I love you. And then again, it says, I love you, so I can tell my parishoners that Im the representative of God here, I need to be a person that tells my people I love them, not just that I love them. [22:45] Its not either/or, its both/and. Sometimes I have guys come up to me and say, well, I show them that I love them. You know, words are cheap. I say, excuse, its not either/or, its both/and. You tell them, and you live it. You know, so you gotta do both. Some people might just say it, but dont show it, and thats another problem, so it has to be both.