Love to the Max
I wish you could meet Max. He has been a parishioner here at Immaculate for decades, but stopped attending when Covid came to town nearly four years ago now. His wife took a turn for the worse during the shutdown of society and he’s been caring for her ever since. He’s 86.
When I showed up at his home last week at the request of hospice, Max answered the door with a look on his face that can only be compared with an 8-year-old boy on Christmas morning: “Father, you’re here, and you brought Jesus.”
His overwhelming joy at my simple act of showing-up with the Eucharist nearly made me burst into tears. We take so much for granted, don’t we?
When Max ushered me into the living room, he brought me immediately to his wife Dolores, asleep on a hospital bed set-up by the windows, where she could see the last few yellow leaves fall from the trees that border the large expanse of yard behind their home.
“Sweetheart, Father brought us Jesus,” Max whispered, leaning in next to her ear. Turning to me, he said: “She doesn’t respond to me anymore, but I don’t stop talking to her.”
As I prepared the oil for Anointing, I asked Max about his life, and he shared so many beautiful snippets of a love that has lasted 67 years, from meeting her in Cincinnati to starting a family in Elkton to the pain of losing two sons years ago.
But then, Max surprised me with this: “It’s all been a gift, Father, even the tough moments. I am so very thankful.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about Max these days as we celebrate the end of our Church year, preparing for Advent and all that comes with the hectic weeks leading up to Christmas. Max kept repeating how thankful he was.
And I have thought to myself: here was a man who grew-up in Nazi-occupied Germany during WWII, came by himself to a country he didn’t know at age 16, struggled much of his life to learn the language and a trade, buried children much too young, and has watched his wife disappear these past three years from Alzheimer’s and other ailments. And he’s thankful?
But he genuinely was, and I came to know how this could be so when I leaned-in to anoint Dolores. Taking her hand, he leaned in, kissed it, and said to her: “Sweetheart, I know you can’t receive Eucharist right now, so I will receive Jesus for the both of us.”
He so believed in the power of the sacrament and of love that he knew in his heart of hearts that by being fed with the Bread of Life, he could feed his wife in her final hours.
Love feeds. Love shepherds. Love stays at the side of those who suffer. Love remains ever-thankful.
For this very reason, the Scriptures capture the essence of what it means for Jesus Christ to be our King.
He did not come as tyrant; he could have. He did not come with weapons ablaze and lightning bolts emanating from his hands. He could have made it to be so. Instead, God came in a feeding trough. He came as one of us. He suffered and died for us. And now he stays – as the Good Shepherd would – to feed us.
Why? Because love feeds in every way possible.
And that is what strikes me most about everything we do as Catholics – it really is centered around feeding. We feed on the Word. We feed on the Bread of Life and Cup of Salvation. Jesus feeds us so that we can feed others.
And maybe that is what is most radical about this particular Gospel on Christ the King Sunday: we become feeders because we were first fed here. Eucharist makes us so.
What happens at every Mass around this sacred table inspires us to go out beyond these doors and feed the hungry, clothe the naked and visit the imprisoned. We do it because He first showed us how. We do it because He does it through us. We do it because that is exactly what an authentic, lay-down-your-life-for-others kind of love does.
And while it is important that we remember the less fortunate and those who suffer greatly – the addicted; the homeless; the elderly and lonely who have no one in their lives – we mustn’t forget that the greatest acts of Christ-like love most often happen under our very roofs, in our neighborhood, in our school and places of work. Sometimes the very least are sitting right next to us in the pew or across from us at the kitchen table. How are we feeding them? How are we clothing them with mercy? Are we visiting them in their pain and brokenness by putting down the phones and having a heart-to-heart conversation?
Mother Teresa said it often, and she said it much more eloquently than I ever could: how can we care for the least in the world if we don’t take the time to love our families?
And therein lies another incredible insight to understanding Christ’s Kingship: it was formed in the home at Nazareth. Humbly. Obediently. A simple life filled with gratitude.
God allowed the hearts and lives, worries and fears of Mary, Joseph and his neighbors and friends to shape his life and his Cross. He let them in, and in so doing, he became the Shepherd-King who seeks the lost; forgives the seemingly-unforgivable. The King who washes feet. The King who says from Calvary, “I’ll go first so you no longer have to be afraid.” The King who says to us now in Word and in the Most Blessed Sacrament: “I remain with you now in ways you may not fully grasp so that you never have to journey alone.”
In many ways, it is exactly what Max has done at the side of his suffering wife for so many years now: he has loved her, and fed her, and was so grateful for it all, even the crosses that came. After all, Eucharist means thankfulness.
When I witnessed Max receive Communion on his knees at age 86 – and tell his wife he was receiving for both of them – I saw Jesus Christ present in a love beyond all telling. What he did for his beloved Dolores, he did for Christ, and Christ was truly present in Eucharist and in a marriage that has weathered all things for 67 years.
Why? Because Love feeds in every way possible: “Come you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Little did I know Max would show me that Kingdom last Saturday afternoon on Old Elk Neck Road at the bedside of his dying sweetheart Dolores.