Greased Pigs and the LOVE Homily

I no longer think that I am some grumpy old, obsessed-with-rules traditionalist every time I feel barfy during a LOVE Homily.

You know what I am calling LOVE Homilies?  That is when a priest/pastor/speaker goes on for 20 minutes (or, heaven help us, longer) about how we should love one another and how much God loves us.

My negative feelings toward LOVE Homilies were greatly magnified during my year of RCIA.  Before I could join the Catholic Church, apparently it was necessary for me to attend mandatory lectures every Saturday night for almost a year.  The point of all of these lectures, best I can remember, was the repeated stating of the fact that God loves me.

Now this was totally worth it considering the end goal of receiving the sacraments and joining the Catholic Church.  No question.

However!  Let the record show that I was a Protestant at the time so I already knew God loved me.  It would have been more helpful if that time had been used explaining some of the wacky-seeming Mary stuff and Purgatory stuff I would soon be buying into.

And I have been trying to love God and neighbor for all my life and what you see is all the progress the Grace of God has mustered up in me.   I need more help.  Something more specific.

One problem with love is it's elusiveness.  Trying to love is like trying to catch a greased pig.  So here we are with oil on our hands and clothes, tired and gross, sweating and slipping, falling off pigs into mud puddles.  The priest often seems more like a dry cheerleader on the sidelines than anyone with actual helpful expertise in the matter although he certainly wrestles his own pigs too.

A quick google search turned up this wiki-how page on How to Catch a Greased Pig.  I guess that is what I want from a homily.  I want another trick to try like "jump diagonally across onto the pig from your better foot."

And in the end, after years of trying to love, my success rate probably has more to do with the gift of Grace than my ability to jump diagonally while grabbing hold.

How about a homily on how to convince God to give me more Grace.