Let Us Begin Again | 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

At the high school I attended as a kid, as you walk through the main doors, before getting to the classrooms or even the front office, you pass beneath two large emblazoned words: Rursus incipiamus. It sounds like it could be the words of a spell cast by Harry Potter, but it contains a much more ordinary sort of magic. Rursus incipiamus: it’s Latin for “let us begin again.” Those words were painted there by the Benedictine monks who run the school, and they form part of St. Benedict’s spiritual wisdom, which has nourished the Church for over 1,500 years now.

When St. Benedict composed his monastic Rule, an outline of Christian living, he didn’t try to get his followers to do a severe amount of fasting, or to spend all day reciting prayers, or to maintain an unbroken silence. Rather, the saint strove for moderation in all things, and a balance which reflects the needs of human nature. His guidelines were full of understanding for how fragile we humans can be, and how difficult it can be to live and work together, whether in a monastery, a school, a neighborhood, or a family home. And so St. Benedict recognized that one of the most important things we need in life is the chance to begin again. To be able to put aside yesterday and focus fully on today, to move past old grievances, mistakes, and shortcomings, and start over fresh. To reset, renew our focus, and strive again for the ideals that are set before us. To put our eyes back on our goals and to remember why they are important in the first place.

Other than perhaps the first few days of January, I think this is probably the time of year when we’re most focused on beginning again: early September. Everyone is coming back from vacations, and we begin again the normal schedule of work. The children are back in school; they begin again. All sorts of organizations which take the summer off are beginning again.

Now that we’re all coming back together, it’s good for us to hear these words spoken to this community: rursus incipiamus, let us begin again! Our Second Reading this week shows us so clearly what our goal is as growing disciples of Jesus Christ. St. Paul tells us, “Brothers and sisters: Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law…love is the fulfillment of the law.” This recalls those poignant words of our Lord, spoken to the apostles at the Last Supper, when He had just given them the Eucharist: “Now love one another as I have loved you.”

This is our goal, and we are always beginning again. We desire to fulfill the Lord’s commandment of love. It was no coincidence that He spoke this command to the apostles over the very table where He had just given them His Body and Blood. He tells them and us, Love like this. Love with the totality and abandonment with which I’ve just given myself to you as nourishment, with my body that will be sacrificed on the altar of the cross.

This is why we end each week and begin a new one by coming together for the sacrifice of the Eucharist, making present the very Love that we will then begin again to bring into every aspect of our life. This is one of the reasons why the Mass is irreplaceable. We won’t be able to realize our goals of bringing radical love into our lives, our workplaces, our homes, our relationships, unless we make contact with that radical Love. And we need a point where we begin again, where we come humbly before God with the victories and defeats of the past week, the bumps and bruises, the good and the bad, and we leave it all here at the altar, and then we start a new week, armed for the struggle with the grace we receive from the sacrament we celebrate here.

So what are the ways God may be calling you to begin again in your mission to be fully transformed in love? A good place to begin is by focusing on your relationships - your relationship with God, with a spouse, a son or daughter, grandchildren, neighbors. But we can also ask our Lord to show us new opportunities for love: a neighbor who we know lives alone, a person at work we could reach out to, someone who crosses our path during our daily routine. Let us strive to bring more love into this world, which sorely needs it. May the Eucharist we receive become the love we live by from one weekend to the next. For “the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.”