p.ben's homily at the end of the year of the eucharist

In the Eucharist, we contemplate the sacrament of this living synthesis of the law: Christ gives us, with himself, the full realization of the love for God and the love for our brothers. And this love of his, he communicates to us when we are nourished by his Body and his Blood. This is when what St. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians in today’s reading is achieved: “You broke with the worship of false gods and became the servants of the living and true God” (1 Thessalonians 1:9). This conversion is the beginning of the path of holiness that the Christian is called to achieve in his own existence.

The saint is he who is so fascinated by the beauty of God and by his perfect truth to be progressively transformed by it. Because of this beauty and truth, he is ready to renounce everything, even himself. The love of God is enough, which he experiences in the humble and disinterested service to the neighbor, especially to those who cannot give back in return.

Read the whole thing here.

It occurs to me, for the first time, that 'social justice' as caring for those who can give nothing back to you is such a large part of what it is to love with the love of Christ - to be like unto him - because we, his creatures for whom he died, can give nothing back to him. He is poured out utterly for us and gets nothing in return (the 'pure gift' the possibility of which, e.g., Derrida denies), and when we are poured out for the sake of those who can give to us nothing in return, we are very near the Lord. Maybe this is an ellementary point that most of you already grasp, but I saw it clearly in Pope Benedict's homily.