Mass Readings Audio
https://bible.usccb.org/podcasts/audio/2021-05-09-usccb-daily-mass-readings
Sixth Sunday of Easter – May 9, 2021
Happy Easter and welcome to the one hundred and sixty-third episode of By Your Life. I’m Lisa Huetteman and I know that you have a hundred different things you could be doing right now, so I thank you for choosing By Your Life.
My goal is to inspire, empower, support, challenge, and encourage you to connect Sunday, with Monday-Friday, in a secular business world. It’s my desire to help you live our Catholic faith in the marketplace. I hope to offer you practical ways to go forth and glorify the Lord by your life.
In this edition, we’ll reflect on the readings for the Sixth Sunday of Easter (Year B). It is fair to say that the message this week was love. We heard the word love, or loves, or loved, nine times in the second reading and another nine times in the Gospel. In the Gospel, Jesus said, “This I command you: love one another.” (Jn 15:17) and in his first letter, St John wrote, “Beloved, let us love one another.” (1 Jn 4:7) But love in the workplace can be complicated.
Many people will be surprised to learn that creating a culture of love can be good for business. According to a study published in the Harvard Business Review, employees who felt they worked in a loving, caring culture reported higher levels of satisfaction and teamwork. The researchers’ initial study took place in a long-term care setting and the findings held true across industries in a follow-up study surveying over 3,200 employees. In seven different industries, from financial services to real estate, “people who worked in a culture where they felt free to express affection, tenderness, caring and compassion for one another, were more satisfied with their jobs, committed to the organization, and accountable for their performance.”
The studies’ authors, Sigal Barsade and Olivia A. O’Neill wrote in a follow-up HBR article that “Most companies don’t realize how central emotions are to building the right culture. They tend to focus on cognitive culture: the shared intellectual values, norms, artifacts, and assumptions that set the overall tone for how employees think and behave at work. Though that’s incredibly important, the authors’ research shows that the other critical part is emotional culture, which governs which feelings people have and express at work.
It makes sense that love would be good in a business environment if you are using the appropriate definition of love. For that, I’d like to suggest St. Paul’s definition is in his first letter to the Corinthians. He wrote, “Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, [love] is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” (1 Cor 13:4-8) I’d like to break this down with the help of Pope Francis from his Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris Laetitia and I invite you to consider how much better off your workplaces would be with a little more of St. Paul’s kind of love.
Love Is Patient
St. Paul begins with “love is patient.” The Holy Father clarifies that the meaning of “patient” used here comes from the Greek translation of the Old Testament, where it says that God is “slow to anger” (Ex 34:6; Num 14:18). He wrote that, “[Patience] refers, then, to the quality of one who does not act on impulse and avoids giving offense.” (¶ 91)
He continues by saying that “Being patient does not mean letting ourselves be constantly mistreated, tolerating physical aggression or allowing other people to use us.” Instead, patience is cultivated by recognizing that relationships and people aren’t perfect and that everything isn’t about us. Otherwise, “everything makes us impatient; everything makes us react aggressively. Unless we cultivate patience, we will always find excuses for responding angrily. We will end up incapable of living together, antisocial, unable to control our impulses, and our families (and our workplaces) will become battlegrounds.” (¶ 92)
So how do you stop acting on impulse?
It is almost impossible in the moment because the limbic brain has taken over and your actions aren’t rational, they’re emotional. The solution I’ve found takes time and requires reflection once the amygdala has stopped hijacking your brain and your higher thinking and reasoning function returns. Then you can think about why the stimulus created the undesirable response, what a preferred response might be, and how to practice that response the next time.
Love Is Kind
The word that Paul uses for kind is only used here in the entire Bible. It comes from the Greek word that means a good person, one who shows his goodness by his deeds. The Holy Father writes that “Paul wants to make it clear that ‘patience’ is not a completely passive attitude, but one accompanied by activity, by a dynamic and creative interaction with others. The word indicates that love benefits and helps others. For this reason, it is translated as ‘kind’; love is ever ready to be of assistance. (¶ 93)
When we go to work, we go to serve others. We can often forget that includes those with whom we work. Being focused on serving our customers is great, but not at the exclusion of helping each other. However, kindness in the workplace means serving not just because it is our job, and we get paid to do it. Instead, as the Holy Father writes, it is something that “allows us to experience the happiness of giving, the nobility and grandeur of spending ourselves unstintingly, without asking to be repaid, purely for the pleasure of giving and serving.” (¶ 94)
This kindness is the person who stays late to help you make copies when you’re under a deadline. It is the person who cleans out the coffee pot in the breakroom and makes fresh coffee for the next person. It is the person who teaches you how to do something when you’re struggling to figure it out by yourself. It is anytime you offer to help just because someone else needs help.
Love Is Not Jealous
One of the downsides of most employee reward and recognition programs is the resentment it creates for those who are overlooked (whether deserving or not). But love has no room for resentment of another person’s good fortune. The Holy Father writes, “Envy is a form of sadness provoked by another’s prosperity; it shows that we are not concerned for the happiness of others but only with our own well-being. Whereas love makes us rise above ourselves, envy closes us in on ourselves. True love values the other person’s achievements. It does not see him or her as a threat. It frees us from the sour taste of envy. It recognizes that everyone has different gifts and a unique path in life. So, it strives to discover its own road to happiness, while allowing others to find theirs.” (¶ 95)
When love is absent in an organization, any attempts to pay for performance or reward significant achievements backfires. It motivates the select few who are recognized and creates discontentment throughout the rest of the organization.
The antidote to envy is appreciation. Love does not see the other person as a threat and recognizes that everyone has different gifts and a unique path in life. Love appreciates their own good fortune and appreciates that God shows no partiality in blessing others too.
Love Is Not Boastful
Love is not pompous nor inflated. The Holy Father explains the Greek word Paul used for pompous denotes vainglory, the need to be haughty, pedantic, and somewhat pushy. The word for inflated literally means that we do not become “puffed up” before others. Paul uses this verb on other occasions, as when he says that “knowledge puffs up”, whereas “love builds up” (1 Cor 8:1). Some think that they are important because they are more knowledgeable than others; they want to lord it over them. Yet what really makes us important is a love that understands, shows concern, and embraces the weak. (¶ 95)
Love is marked by humility. The way to gain humility, the Holy Father says, is to actively seek to understand, forgive, and serve others from the heart. If we do, “our pride has to be healed and our humility must increase.” (¶ 98)
Love Is Not Rude
Love is not rude, impolite, harsh, abrasive, or rigid. Love abhors making others suffer. The Holy Father writes, “Courtesy requires a person to develop his or her mind and feelings, learning how to listen, to speak and, at certain times, to keep quiet. It is not something that a Christian may accept or reject. As an essential requirement of love, every human being is bound to live agreeably with those around him.” (¶ 99)
In a culture of love, people know how to disagree without being disagreeable. People show respect for diverse and divergent thought and creative solutions to problems that are not squashed by rude, harsh, and abrasive behavior.
Love Is Generous
Although love does not seek its own interests, to love another, we must first love ourselves. Yet, the Holy Father says, “The Bible makes it clear that generously serving others is far more noble than loving ourselves. Loving ourselves is only important as a psychological prerequisite for being able to love others: ‘If a man is mean to himself, to whom will he be generous? No one is meaner than the man who is grudging to himself.’ (Sir 14:5-6).” (¶ 101)
Saint Thomas Aquinas said that “it is more proper to charity to desire to love than to desire to be loved.” Can such generosity, which enables us to give freely and fully, really be possible? Can love transcend and overflow the demands of justice, expecting nothing in return? The Holy Father writes, “Yes, because it is demanded by the Gospel: ‘You received without pay, give without pay.’ (Mt 10:8)” (¶ 102)
In a culture of love, people are not manipulative by doing something with the expectation for payback. Instead, they give for the joy of giving, and joy increases in these workplaces.
Love Is Not Quick Tempered and Does Not Brood Over Injury
Love is not irritable or resentful. The Holy Father explains that the Greek word Paul used “has to do more with an interior indignation provoked by something from without. It refers to a violent reaction within, a hidden irritation that sets us on edge where others are concerned, as if they were troublesome or threatening and thus to be avoided. To nurture such interior hostility helps no one. It only causes hurt and alienation. Indignation is only healthy when it makes us react to a grave injustice; when it permeates our attitude towards others it is harmful.” (¶ 103)
It is a natural human response to sense a sudden surge of hostility, but the Holy Father warns against giving in to it and letting it take root in our hearts. He said, “Our first reaction when we are annoyed should be one of heartfelt blessing, asking God to bless, free and heal that person. Do not let the day end without making peace” with others. (¶ 104)
Love Does Not Rejoice Over Wrongdoing
If we allow ill will to take root in our hearts, it leads to deep resentment. The Holy Father points out that the phrase Paul used means that love “takes no account of evil”; “it is not resentful”. The opposite of resentment is forgiveness, which is rooted in a positive attitude that seeks to understand other people’s weaknesses and to excuse them.” Jesus taught us from the Cross, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Lk 23:34), Yet, the Holy Father says “we keep looking for more and more faults, imagining greater evils, presuming all kinds of bad intentions, and so resentment grows and deepens. (¶ 105)
Forgiveness is possible and desirable, but no one can say that it is easy. To forgive others, the Holy Father writes, requires the experience of understanding and forgiving ourselves, and the experience of being forgiven by God, justified by his grace and not by our own merits. “If we accept that God’s love is unconditional, that the Father’s love cannot be bought or sold, then we will become capable of showing boundless love and forgiving others even if they have wronged us. Otherwise, our [workplaces] will no longer be a place of understanding, support, and encouragement, but rather one of constant tension and mutual criticism. (¶ 106-108)
Love Bears All Things, Believes All Things, Hopes All Things, Endures All Things
A counter-cultural workplace with a culture of love can face whatever might threaten it. First, St. Paul says that love bears all things. The Holy Father writes that this is about more than simply putting up with evil; it has to do with the use of the tongue by limiting judgment, checking the impulse to issue a ruthless condemnation. Instead, love cherishes the good name of others, even one’s enemies (¶ 112) To do this, we must realize that all of us are a complex mixture of light and shadows. The other person is much more than the sum of the little things that annoy me. (¶ 113) In a culture of love, people seek and appreciate the good in others.
When St. Paul says, “love believes all things,” “belief “ is more of what we mean by “trust”. Such basic trust recognizes God’s light shining beyond the darkness. (¶ 114) Love trusts, it sets free, it does not try to control, possess, and dominate everything. (¶ 115) In a culture of love, people trust each other and that facilitates getting things done.
Love hopes all things. It does not despair of the future. It does involve realizing that, though things may not always turn out as we wish, God may well make crooked lines straight and draw some good from the evil we endure in this world. (¶ 116) In a culture of love, people learn from things that go wrong and seek continuous improvement.
Love endures all things meaning that love bears every trial with a positive attitude. This “endurance” involves not only the ability to tolerate certain aggravations but something greater: a constant readiness to confront any challenge. It is a love that never gives up, even in the darkest hour. (¶ 118) In a culture of love, people encourage each other to never give up.
Love Never Fails
Just as God’s love never fails us and love for one another never fails, creating a culture of love never fails in the workplace. A company whose culture is built on patience, kindness, humility, courtesy, generosity, blessing, forgiveness, looking for the good in others, trust, hope, and never giving up, will never fail because love never fails.
So, let’s pray:
Jesus, you told us as the Father loves you, so do you love us. You asked us to remain in your love and commanded us to love one another. You told us this so that your joy would be in us and that our joy might be complete. Help us to be patient, kind, humble, courteous, generous, blessing, forgiving, looking for the good in others, to trust, hope, and never stop loving you. So that in all we do, we will glorify you by our lives.
May God bless you abundantly this week as you remain in his love and may you glorify the Lord by your life. Amen.
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