The Work of Love

Homily for Thursday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time

The Scriptures today draw us into the quiet, interior work of love—the kind of love that shapes a Franciscan heart and that marked the life of Bl. Agnellus of Pisa, the friar St. Francis sent to plant the Order in England. His mission succeeded because he was gentle, patient, and deeply aware of the dignity of every person he met.

St. Paul reminds us that “knowledge inflates with pride, but love builds up.” Knowledge can make us feel secure, even superior; but love makes us attentive. Love notices the person who is fragile, the one who is searching, the one who might stumble because of our choices. Paul invites us to a way of living in which we willingly limit ourselves for the sake of another’s growth. It is a beautiful picture of the Gospel lived quietly, without fanfare.

Psalm 139 deepens this movement inward. We are reminded that God knows us and accompanies us from our very beginnings. When we allow ourselves to be seen by God in this way, we become freer to see others with the same tenderness. The psalm’s prayer—“Lead me in the way everlasting”—becomes a request for a heart shaped by divine patience.

Jesus then gives us the unmistakable mark of discipleship: love your enemies, bless those who curse you, give without expecting return. These are steady habits of mercy. They form a community where no one is written off, where even the difficult person is treated as someone God has already loved first.

Bl. Agnellus lived this Gospel in the early days of the Franciscan mission. He built fraternity not by argument but by presence—by listening, by reconciling, by choosing the slower, kinder path. His life reminds us that the Church grows when its members choose the way of mercy over the way of pride.

Today, perhaps the Lord invites us to one small act of that same mercy:

a softer word, a patient silence, a willingness to step back so another may step forward. These are the quiet works of love that build up the Body of Christ.

May the Lord who searches our hearts lead us, as the psalm prays, in the way everlasting, and may Bl. Agnellus intercede for us as we seek to love as Christ loves.