Gospel For Today

FOURTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME (C)

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Anyone who has ever been to a Catholic wedding will recognize today's second reading, from 1 Corinthians.  It is full of some of the most quotable lines of St. Paul's writings. 

"If I speak in human and angelic tongues, but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal."

"If I have all faith so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing."

"Love is patient, love is kind... It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

"So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love."

If you'll forgive the pun, what St. Paul does here is get to the heart of the matter.  Our best actions, our most eloquent words, our noblest deeds, our strongest faith -- all of these things can be spoiled by a lack of love.  If I had to summarize in one sentence what God wants from us, I would have to say, "He wants our hearts."  He wants us to love.

This helps to explain what Christ meant when He said He did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it (Mat 5:17).  Think about these things.  The Commandments say to not commit adultery.  But Jesus says, "everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Mat 5:28).  Likewise the Commandments say not to kill.  But Jesus tells us to not even to be angry with our brothers (Mat 5:22).

The Commandments say "Thou shalt have no gods before me."  But Jesus says, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind..." (Lk 10:27).

You see how Jesus' teachings do not contradict or do away with the Commandments, but rather get to the heart of their meaning.  Christ goes on to say in the same passage from Luke that you should "love your neighbor as yourself."  It follows if you love your neighbor, you will not desire to lie to him, steal from him, kill him, seduce his wife, or covet his possessions, etc.  Just as if you love God with all your heart, you will not take His name in vain, disobey His commands, or worship false gods (by treating other things as if they are more important than God is).

This is why St. Augustine could summarize the whole of the moral law in one sentence.  "Love God; then do as you will."  He did not mean this in a modern day, relativist sense.  Some mistakenly interpret Augustine today to mean we have permission to do whatever we wish, so long as we love God.  This is not true.  There are some things which we may never do because they are contrary to our nature, contrary to the way God made us.  We call these mortal sins.  They are beneath our dignity and actually cause us spiritual damage when we do them; things such as murder, adultery, fornication, blasphemy, dishonesty, theft, and the like (things which violate the Ten Commandments).  What St. Augustine means is that if we truly love God, we will have no desire to do these things.  In fact, the thought of them abhors us.  So if you truly have love of God in your heart, you are free to do what you will, because you will only desire to do what is pleasing to God.

So how do we increase our love for God and neighbor?  We decide to love.  Today.  

Think about this: Jesus commands us to love.  This means that love is an action, an act of the will, something we can make up our minds to do.  It is more than just a human emotion.  If love were simply an emotion, Jesus could not have commanded it of us.  You cannot command someone to feel an emotion.  Telling someone who is sad to "feel happy," is ineffectual.  If we could choose to feel happy, no one would ever feel sorrow!   You cannot choose to feel frightened, or joyous, or frustrated.  These are things that happen to you, not things you can choose.

But love is different.  You can choose to love.  God would never command us to do something impossible.  Love is an act of the will.  And it is like anything else we do -- it is a skill we can practice and improve over time.  When one first begins to love it can be shaky, haphazard, and require great effort.  But over time, with practice, it can become effortless and graceful.  The great practitioners of love do so with marvelous achievement!  (Think of the saints as our "Lovers Hall of Fame").

One final -- and essential -- fact about love.  God is love (1 Jn 4:8).  This is the crux of St. Paul's teaching.  We can perform mighty deeds and achieve all that is great in the eyes of man.  But if we do it all without love, we do it without God.

God bless!

Matt

--

WCU Catholic Campus Ministry

Matthew Newsome, MTh, campus minister

www.WCUCatholic.org

  

(828)293-9374  |   POB 2766, Cullowhee NC 28723

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From WCU: Gospel For Today

THIRTY-FIRST SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME (B)
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"Which is the first of all the commandments?"  Jesus replied, "The first is this.. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.  The second is this:  You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  There is no other commandment greater than these."

The above is from today's Gospel reading (Mk 12:28b-34).  My question for you is this:  When Jesus says there is no other commandment greater than these, is he doing away with the commandments given to the Isrealites by God through Moses?  The answer is no, he is not.  Jesus himself said he did not come to abolish the old law, but rather to fulfill it (Mt. 5:17).  Rather than doing away with the Ten Commandments, what Jesus does in today's gospel is to get right to the heart of them.

The Ten Commandments are a great gift to mankind.  I have heard people grumble that Christianity is all about the negative, telling people what they cannot do, and the Ten Commandments are the perfect example of this with all their "Thou shalt nots."  My response to this is to laugh and point out that it was much more efficient for God to tell us the few things we can't do than to list out all the great multitude of good things we can do.  Besides, knowing one's limitations can be freeing.

Imagine a playground for children that's set in the center of a small desert island in the south Pacific (I don't know why anyone would build such a thing, just go with it).  The ocean currents are swift and dangerous, and so to keep the children safe, they have to stay huddled in the center of the island, for fear of getting too close to the shore and being swept away.  Now if someone comes along and builds a fence around the perimeter of the island, the children can freely enjoy the whole island without fear.  God's commandments are like that fence.  They are not restrictive, but freeing, because they establish the safe boundaries for our lives.  Stay within the perimeter of the commandments and you are free to enjoy all life has to offer without worry of being swept away by sin.  It is only when we "jump the fence" that we are in danger.  That's not freedom; it is spiritual suicide.

Jesus today shows us that God's commandments are not in fact based in negativity; they are based in love.  First and foremost is the love of God.  The first three commandments deal with this love.
1. You shall have no other gods before me.
2. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
3. Remember to keep holy the Lord's Day.
All of these have to do with our right relationship with God.  The rest of the commandments deal with how we relate to our neighbors.  Jesus tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves.  This means...
4. Honor your father and mother.
5. Don't murder.
6. Don't commit adultery.
7. Don't steal.
8. Don't lie.
9. Don't covet your neighbor's spouse.
10. Don't cover your neighbor's goods.
The fourth commandment can actually be considered a "hinge" between the first three and the last six.  Jesus teaches us to call God our Father, and so the first father we must honor is the one "who art in heaven."  Human parents derive their authority (and their position of honor) from the divine parent, God.  And so we honor our fathers and mothers here because they are the first reflections of God for us as children.  While we acknowledge God as our Creator, we know our parents had a hand in it, as well (we call the act of conceiving children procreation after all, because we assist in God's act of creation).  They brought us into being, they teach us the ways of the Lord, instruct us in the faith, and show us what it means to be good and loving Christian people, with the hope of eternal life for us.  And we honor them for doing those things.

And what if our human parents don't do those things, or don't do them well?  We still honor them, perhaps not so much for what they are, but for what they ought to be; for what they could be in cooperation with God's grace.

We honor them not because we have to, but because we know it is right to do so.  We honor them because we love them.
And that, dear students, is the motivation behind all of the Commandments -- love.  When we break any commandment, it is a violation of love.  We commit an unloving act, either against a fellow human being or against God himself.  We do harm to a relationship (and to our own dignity).  This is why we call Confession the Sacrament of Reconciliation -- because through it we are reconciled with God and with our neighbor.

St. Augustine once summed up the whole moral law in this way:  "Love God.  Then do as you will."
What he meant was not that it is okay for us to do anything at all, so long as we say we love God.  What he meant was that if you truly love God you will not want to do anything that would damage your relationship with Him.  You would not want to do anything that was against Love.

This is why Christ implores us to love God, not just a little, and not just on Sundays.  We need to love him with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, with all our strength.  It should be a fierce love.  And likewise with our neighbors -- we don't just love them when it is convenient to do so, but we love them as we love ourselves, which means constantly and consistently wanting nothing but good for them.  Our love of self should motivate us to become saints, so that we may enjoy eternity with God, in communion with the other saints and angels.  We want our neighbors to be there, too, so we should be helping them to become saints in this life.

It's all about love.  Love of God.  Love of neighbor.  Love of self.  (In that order).  Put that into practice and things start to make sense.
God bless!
Matt
--

WCU Catholic Campus Ministry
Matthew Newsome, MTh, campus minister
www.WCUCatholic.org
  
(828)293-9374  |   POB 2766, Cullowhee NC 28723
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