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Pope Benedict's Lent 2010 Message.

I want to consider the meaning of the term "justice," which in common usage implies "to render to every man his due," according to the famous expression of Ulpian, a Roman jurist of the third century. In reality, however, this classical definition does not specify what "due" is to be rendered to each person. What man needs most cannot be guaranteed to him by law. In order to live life to the full, something more intimate is necessary that can be granted only as a gift: we could say that man lives by that love which only God can communicate since He created the human person in His image and likeness.

This reminds me of what I wrote a few days ago about the assertion I read that "You deserve love." But if something is inherently a gift, like love, then it is by definition given despite the fact that we have done nothing in particular to warrant receiving it. In the case of God's love, we have done quite the opposite. We have given Him reason to justly withhold His love from us.

And that is, in a most unsettling sense, what we really "deserve." So when it comes to love, it is not a question of what we deserve. It is a question of how we might escape what we deserve. The answer, simply, is we need God to save us. We don't deserve His saving love. We simply need it.

"We though many are one body in Christ, and individually parts of one another," St. Paul writes*. That "one body in Christ," or what is known in Catholicism as the "Mystical Body of Christ," is simply the community of those who believe in Christ and are united to Him by baptism -- it is the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.

Often times when people think of the "Catholic Church," they picture the hierarchy, the Vatican, the pope, the cardinals, bishops, priests etc. And the Church certainly includes all these.

But the Church is all of us, all who are baptized in Christ.

We may think that a life of "holiness" is the business of those ordained types, and the nuns and monks. When it comes to living and praying and being like Jesus, that's for those folks, not me. I have a real job!

But Christ calls us to love one another as He loves us. It is called the "universal call to holiness." He calls all of us who are baptized in Him to really give of ourselves to each other and devote ourselves to one another's wellbeing, the way He first did for us.

The image of "one body" is useful here. St. Paul writes that the "eye cannot say to the hand, 'I do not need your hep,' nor the head to the feet, 'I have no need of you.' No much rather those that seem the more feeble members of the body are in fact that much more necessary, and those that seem less honorable, we surround with even more abundant honor.'"**

I, Mark, am one body. Suppose my hand is bleeding from a gash, almost severed, dangling there by a couple of hairs, and blood is spewing all over my shirt and pants. Suppose I look at my hand, shrug indifferently, and say, "Eh, whatever."

I suspect you would think there was something rather wrong with me. Men in white coats would have to come take me away.

Why? Because what is supposed to happen is the whole rest of my body is supposed to get to work to try to fix that.

And notice, if I react to my wound with indifference, then the problem is not just with my hand, but with all of me. With my whole body and my whole mind. You'd think I was crazy, or suicidal, or not all there, or something.

Well if we're One Body in Christ, what does that mean? It means that if just one of us is hurting spiritually, emotionally, or in any other way, and the rest of us do nothing to help that person, then something is wrong with our whole body, our whole mind, our whole soul.

If we are truly one body in Christ, then indifference is not an option.

This is not some Communist-type collectivism that destroys individuality or personal responsibility. Jesus did not create a political city-state. He started a family. And the genius of a family is that you as an individual are loved unconditionally simply because you are a part of the family, and yet you grow up recognizing that you are not the only person on the planet. Sometimes you have to wait in line for the bathroom. Sometimes you have to clean up messes you didn't make. But other times you learn just how great it is to have your mom and dad tell you "good job."

You learn in your family better than anywhere else exactly who you are, what you're good at, what you enjoy, what you uniquely have to offer to the family and to the world. And the goal of a member of the family of God, the Body of Christ, is to hear the Father say to us, the same way He said it to Jesus, "With you I am well pleased."***

And the really interesting thing about families, and this is something we could sure be reminded of these days: the bigger the better. Maybe that's why Jesus told His disciples to go and make disciples of "all nations."+

*Romans 12:5
**I Corinthians 12:21-23
***Matthew 3:17
+Matthew 28:19

I've recently seen a new facebook group -- one of those politically charged ones whose title is always "bet I can find 1,000,000 people who support such and such." It's up close to 2,000,000 members now, but of course who knows how many of the people who have signed on to it actually believe in the group's stated cause or are just signing on to it so they can write on the group's wall. That's just one of the reasons I rarely if ever join a politically charged group or cause on facebook.

Well, suffice to say that if you're one of those dissenters in this particular politically charged facebook group, you are blessed with the time-honored, rational-conversation-ending moniker: "homophobe."

The creator of the group publicly posted a message to one such dissenter, which began with the proclamation: "YOU deserve love."

Now this got me thinking. How successful do relationships tend to be when the focus on one (or both) of the parties is what he or she deserves from it? If I go into a relationship thinking solely of what I deserve, what is likely to happen in that relationship?

Is it better to go into a relationship thinking about what I deserve or what I can do to serve?

We have at least one religious leader in history who expressed a certain philosophy of relationships -- when he said that he came "not to be served but to serve."

That's the point of love. It is not that I deserve anything. Love has to be freely given, and freely received. If I were to walk up to my fiance and say, "Marry me -- I deserve it," how likely would she have been to say yes? Could any woman, or man as the case may be, say yes without disrespecting herself or himself?

Then what disrespect would be done to the beautiful gift of marriage if it was just given away to anyone who demanded it as a "right"?

Life, love, marriage, is not about what we deserve. It's about what we are called to do. I am called to serve others -- in a special way my family -- the one I presently have, and the one that I hope to build in the future.

The problem that I see with the movement to expand (and thereby essentially dissolve) the definition of marriage, is the thrust of the argument -- namely that it is a "right," something that you and I "deserve."

This is not to say that people deserve a wretched, loveless existence. But marriage and love are not the same thing. Many of the people who support same-sex marriage also very well understand this simple fact. Some same-sex marriage supporters view the traditional, heterosexual, monogamous, lifelong version of marriage with suspicion and even contempt. Those who are married to each other certainly deserve to be loved by one another in all the ways that the marriage vow requires. But that is not the same as saying that everyone "deserves" to be married -- much less saying that everyone deserves to enter into whatever manner of relationship they wish with whomever or whatever they wish, and call that "marriage."