We are often taught to think of love as being sentimental. It is something existing in the emotional realm that can be recognized but not defined—a swelling feeling in the chest when a friend shares a kind deed or a grin that slides across the face uncontrollably at the sight of nieces and nephews discovering the world. It is amorphous.

And yet, we are called in our readings today to understand love as something that has shape to it. We hear three times that we are called to love God not only with our heart and soul but also with our mind and our strength. God is not looking for us to share our sentiment alone, but rather to approach our faith also with intellect, understanding, grit, and service. When we experience moments of doubt, God invites into the struggle to ask questions and make meaning. When we encounter God in the faces of those around us, most especially those who are poor, love calls us to act and to serve.

St. Vincent de Paul once said to his confreres that we are called to love God “with the strength of our arms and the sweat of our brows.” This is the kind of love God wants from us—heart, soul, mind, and strength.

And who are we supposed to love? Our neighbors.

It’s as simple as that.

Jesus does not say that we should love our neighbors who practice the same faith as we do or who look like us  or who vote for the same political party or who have the same immigration status. He commands that we love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

When I look at news headlines from the last couple of weeks and see the violence that has plagued our country, I ask myself, “Who am I not loving enough? Who, if I am being starkly honest with myself, do I view as other instead of neighbor?”

It is not enough for our sentiments to go out to the victims of violence and hate crimes in our country. Just as we are called to love God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we are called to love our neighbors with the same fortitude. We are called to speak out in the face of hateful rhetoric and racist violence, stand firm beside those who are persecuted for their faith traditions, and build tables of hospitality when the stranger is in our midst.

How can you commit to loving with your full self this week? Who can you turn to and embrace as neighbor?

Whose bodies have worth? Whose do not?

Whose bodies have worth, and whose do not?

This question may seem alarming, perhaps even like a trick or a trap. The correct answer is, obviously, that every person’s body matters. Everyone is deserving of dignity. However, a simple glance at the headlines will tell us that some bodies matter more in our country than others.

It is everyday news for Brown bodies to be separated from their families and detained in freezing rooms without blankets or beds, normal for unarmed Black bodies to be riddled with police bullets, expected for Transgender bodies to be harassed on public transportation.

The thing that these bodies hold in common is that they are not the “default.”

Growing up in Catholic school, I often asked “Why he?” Why was God a father and not a mother? Why do we say mankind instead of humankind? Why do scripture teachings about general, nonspecific populations use he/his/him pronouns instead of an equal mix of male and female? The answer was always that in the English language, man is used to represent all people. “It’s really nothing against women. We just need an easy way to refer to everybody.”

The flaw in that logic is that in making one experience normal, anyone who falls outside of that identity becomes abnormal, second class, other. When a culture is built around a default identity, all bodies that are “other” to that default are valued less.

There are times in Mass when the Eucharistic prayer pains my spirit. Once I start to hear the ways that femininity has been excluded from the image of the Sacred, I cannot unhear it. When I start to spiral down this path, I change the male pronouns in my mind to female pronouns. It is a practice that not only changes the way I am able to relate to the Divine, but it also changes my image of Her. It broadens what She is capable of.

This week, I decided to try this practice with the readings, and I would like to invite you to join in this with me. From the book of Wisdom:

The wicked say:
Let us beset the just one, because she is obnoxious to us;
she sets herself against our doings,
reproaches us for transgressions of the law
and charges us with violations of our training.
Let us see whether her words be true;
let us find out what will happen to her.
For if the just one be the daughter of God, God will defend her
and deliver her from the hand of her foes.
With revilement and torture let us put the just one to the test
that we may have proof of her gentleness
and try her patience.
Let us condemn her to a shameful death;
for according to her own words, God will take care of her.

When we pause and take the effort to upend the default in this reading, we see a shockingly accurate depiction of the way that our culture responds to sexual assault survivors who come forward and accuse their attackers. Let us beset the just one, because she is obnoxious to us; she sets herself against our doings, reproaches us for our transgressions of the law. Let us see whether her words be true; let us find out what will happen to her.

Take a moment to think of the accusations brought against Brett Kavanaugh. How many in our country have chosen to question Christine Blasey Ford’s credibility rather than take her seriously? How many have painted her as obnoxious or untrustworthy?

With revilement and torture let us put the just one to the test that we may have proof of her gentleness and try her patience. Remember Anita Hill and the grueling hearing she was put through, how she was put to the test and expected to remain calm and collected lest her emotions discredit the horrors she experienced.

This week, I invite you to the practice of turning the default image of God on its head. What can we see when we dare to imagine a world where the “other” is represented in our sacred stories? How wide can God become if we realize that God is bigger than the cages we construct? We do ourselves no favors by resting dormant in the smallness of a censored God.