Love Becomes Real When It Costs Us Something Series

Title: Love Becomes Real When It Costs Us Something

Intro: The Kingdom of Christ is not distant or abstract; it is discovered among the hungry, the sick, the imprisoned, and the forgotten.

Scripture: Luke 23:35-43

Reflection

Dear Friends,

The Church’s teachings can feel abstract until they demand something difficult from us, until they challenge the comfortable distance we keep from those who suffer. The apostolic exhortation “Dilexi Te” and the Feast of Christ the King, celebrated this month, share a message that is both ancient and urgently contemporary. They ask believers to reconsider everything about power, privilege, and what it means to love those the world overlooks.

“Dilexi Te” sounds like another call to help the poor, but its message cuts deeper. It insists that loving the poor is not a charitable obligation tacked onto Christian life, it defines Christian life. The poor are not merely people we help; they are teachers who can transform us. The document challenges what it calls “structures of sin,” the economic systems and cultural habits that create poverty and make it invisible to those who benefit from the status quo. It rejects the “throwaway culture” that treats people as disposable when they cannot produce or consume. Being a “poor Church for the poor” is not inspiring rhetoric, it is the standard by which the Gospel’s credibility will be judged.

This vision demands more than writing checks or feeling momentary sympathy. It requires genuine encounters where we listen and learn from those who struggle, recognizing their dignity and wisdom. Personal acts of kindness matter, but they are incomplete without efforts to change the systems that perpetuate inequality. Catholic social teaching rests on three pillars: human dignity, solidarity, and subsidiarity, respecting every person’s inherent worth, committing to the common good, and empowering communities to shape their own futures. The Church’s authenticity is measured by how concretely these principles are lived, not just proclaimed.

The Feast of Christ the King, established during the political upheavals of the 1920s, offers an equally countercultural vision. It celebrates Christ’s kingship, but this king wears a crown of thorns and reigns from a cross. His authority exists entirely to serve. Where earthly power dominates, Christ’s power liberates. Where worldly rulers demand submission, Christ invites participation in a kingdom of equality and peace where the weakest are welcomed first. This is leadership turned inside out, authority redefined as sacrifice.

Both teachings converge on a startling claim: contact with those who suffer is contact with Christ himself. His kingdom is not distant or abstract, it is discovered among the hungry, the sick, the imprisoned, the forgotten. Christ explicitly identifies with them, making every act of love toward them a personal encounter with the divine. The feast day reminds us that gratitude for what Christ has done remains hollow unless it translates into generosity toward those who bear his suffering face. To enthrone Christ in our lives means dethroning the idols of comfort, indifference, and self-protection.

The difficulty of this calling is real. “Dilexi Te” describes how privilege creates bubbles that insulate the comfortable from growing poverty, even in wealthy societies. We discard people without noticing. The “structures of sin” are stubborn and often invisible to those they benefit. Charity alone cannot address them, we need advocacy for systemic change and a fundamental shift in how we think. Personal conversion is not enough without institutional and societal transformation. Facing the enormity of global suffering, many of us feel paralyzed by our own powerlessness.

Yet here lies the paradox and the opportunity. The very difficulty we face in loving the poor becomes the source of our conversion. Encountering poverty and exclusion with open hearts forces us into humility, revealing our shared vulnerability and dependence on grace. Solidarity is not just a feeling, it is what Pope John Paul II called “a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good.” It means building real relationships, listening to stories that challenge our assumptions, allowing our comfortable certainties to be questioned.

Change often begins small. A conversation. A regular commitment. A choice to see rather than look away. The Church invites those with resources and influence to work alongside movements led by the poor themselves, rather than simply doing things for them. There is prophetic hope in this approach: when we center our communities on the Gospel’s vision of love and justice, even modest actions create ripples. Barriers break down. Reconciliation becomes possible. Each act, however humble, makes the Church a more credible witness to Christ’s love.

Both “Dilexi Te” and the Feast of Christ the King ultimately call us beyond comfort and complacency, beyond charity performed at arm’s length. They summon us into service of a kingdom not built on worldly principles, where justice is measured by genuine solidarity and leadership looks like loving sacrifice. In a society quick to divide and discard, these teachings propose a radically different way of living. They challenge us. They transform us. Most importantly, they teach us what love actually means when it is real.

May the heart of Jesus live in the hearts of all. Amen…