Theologian and icon of the 80’s Huey Lewis once eloquently stated: “The power of love is a curious thing.” I can’t help but agree with this sage wisdom—even when the sage is wearing cheesy suits and sunglasses.
Yesterday, my mother had to let one of her doggos cross the rainbow bridge. He’s been in terrible pain for years; he could hardly eat, he didn’t want to walk anymore, and he was tired. It was time. I went to mom’s to be supportive, you know, like a good son. I watched as she said goodbye and then I stayed in the room when they administered the final dose—I didn’t want her to have to watch that. After he was sedated, he wouldn’t know we were there. Yet, still, I stayed.
Here's the interesting thing about love: For the first time in six years, I truly cried. I don’t mean the single tear or choked-up cry, I mean the “Oh God I hope no one sees this and what is that sound type of crying. I helped the doctor take Jake out to the car, called mom back into the room. He was her first dog, meaning that he was the first one she’d raised on her own. Yet, in that moment, I found myself being a human and not a priest. She held me as I ‘supported’ her.
I don’t know if it was a culmination of years’ worth of pain and bottled emotions. I don’t know why. But the dam broke and the water sluiced out. The power of love for a creature so innocent, so pure, overwhelmed me as I watched him go to his resting place, as I held his paw while he died.
Jesus was a human innocent of crime. He was innocent of sin. He was pure of heart, mind, and soul. And humanity watched as he died. Most of them didn’t hold his hand or stand at his feet in solidarity; they mocked him, and he died for the sins of the world that shouted slurs and curses while he did it. They watched as he was taken away and no one shed a tear.
I will continue to cry for animals—I’m a dog person. When people die, it’s less of a crying grief and more of a missing—yet grateful—heart that I possess in their passing. That grief is holy and wonderful on both accounts, for it is the price we pay for love. It’s the price Jesus paid. And thanks be to God for that.
This is the power of love. A love that desires us so deeply as to warrant every breath it has, even until the last. Christ’s death and remembrance of it should evoke the kind of tears I had for Jake yesterday; some years it does. Yet, I know the power of that love versus the power of the love I hold for an animal is heavily tilted toward God. I don’t cry in remembrance of Christ because he hasn’t gone anywhere, not really. He is with us, he remains steadfast in his mission to spread God’s word through us, now. We are his legacy, we are his body, we are his living testimony…
To the real power of love.
Faithfully,
Fr. Sean+