20140917 TAKING FLIGHT FROM LOVE

20140917 TAKING FLIGHT FROM LOVE

First reading

1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13 ©

Be ambitious for the higher gifts. And I am going to show you a way that is better than any of them.

  If I have all the eloquence of men or of angels, but speak without love, I am simply a gong booming or a cymbal clashing. If I have the gift of prophecy, understanding all the mysteries there are, and knowing everything, and if I have faith in all its fullness, to move mountains, but without love, then I am nothing at all. If I give away all that I possess, piece by piece, and if I even let them take my body to burn it, but am without love, it will do me no good whatever.

  Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous; love is never boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offence, and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes.

  Love does not come to an end. But if there are gifts of prophecy, the time will come when they must fail; or the gift of languages, it will not continue for ever; and knowledge – for this, too, the time will come when it must fail. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophesying is imperfect; but once perfection comes, all imperfect things will disappear. When I was a child, I used to talk like a child, and think like a child, and argue like a child, but now I am a man, all childish ways are put behind me. Now we are seeing a dim reflection in a mirror; but then we shall be seeing face to face. The knowledge that I have now is imperfect; but then I shall know as fully as I am known.

  In short, there are three things that last: faith, hope and love; and the greatest of these is love.

Psalm

Psalm 32:2-5,12,22 ©

Happy the people the Lord has chosen as his own.

Give thanks to the Lord upon the harp,

  with a ten-stringed lute sing him songs.

O sing him a song that is new,

  play loudly, with all your skill.

Happy the people the Lord has chosen as his own.

For the word of the Lord is faithful

  and all his works to be trusted.

The Lord loves justice and right

  and fills the earth with his love.

Happy the people the Lord has chosen as his own.

They are happy, whose God is the Lord,

  the people he has chosen as his own.

May your love be upon us, O Lord,

  as we place all our hope in you.

Happy the people the Lord has chosen as his own.

Gospel Acclamation           cf.1Th2:13

Alleluia, alleluia!

Accept God’s message for what it really is:

God’s message, and not some human thinking.

Alleluia!

Or        cf.Jn6:63,68

Alleluia, alleluia!

Your words are spirit, Lord, and they are life;

you have the message of eternal life.

Alleluia!

Gospel           Luke 7:31-35 ©

Jesus said to the people: ‘What description can I find for the men of this generation? What are they like? They are like children shouting to one another while they sit in the market-place:

‘“We played the pipes for you,

and you wouldn’t dance;

we sang dirges,

and you wouldn’t cry.”

‘For John the Baptist comes, not eating bread, not drinking wine, and you say, “He is possessed.” The Son of Man comes, eating and drinking, and you say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” Yet Wisdom has been proved right by all her children.’

TAKING FLIGHT FROM LOVE

SCRIPTURE READINGS: 1 COR 12:31-13:13; LK 7:31-35
http://www.universalis.com/20140917/mass.htm

In the first reading, St Paul gives us a definition of love.  He wrote, “Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous; love is never boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offence, and is not resentful.  Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes.”

Clearly love is not just a feeling.  Love is the giving of oneself to another in acceptance, tolerance, forgiveness, compassion and long suffering.  Most of all, love delights in the truth, which means that true love includes truth.  By reducing love to just a nice feeling, it is more an egoistic love for self rather than a true love for those whom we profess to love.  It does not mean to say that feelings are not an essential component of love but love goes beyond the needs of the lover to the needs of the beloved.

Because of the demands of love, namely, sacrifice and commitment, many escape from the invitation to love.  This was what Jesus said to the people, particularly the Jewish leaders who, like children, refused to respond to the tunes played for them.  And this was because when John the Baptist came, they rejected his message, saying that he was possessed, since he was observing an ascetic lifestyle.  But when the “Son of Man comes, eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’”  In truth, they were not ready to change their lives or to accept the love of God.  Excuses!  So too, when it comes to the crux of loving, we too look for reasons to justify our failures in love.  We try to find distractions in our lives for not loving.

When do we run away from love?  When the going gets tough!  When the feeling is no more there and the pleasures of love is gone.  When there is no more physical intimacy to sustain that relationship. When there are differences in personality and opinions and we are not willing to defer ourselves to the other because of pride and a stubborn will.  When we want to control the other to do our bidding.  When sacrifices are needed from us, especially our time, resources, energy, wealth and money.  When we are required to die to ourselves in oblative love for another.  When we have to reveal ourselves, our lives, fears, weaknesses, brokenness, feelings and become vulnerable.  And when commitment is demanded, which means giving up our freedom for the love of another.

How do we run away from love?  Principally, we escape from love by seeking substitutes in things or in persons.  So when the relationship becomes serious and the pain of adjusting to each other’s differences arise, we quickly change partners so that we can have the nice feelings of love without commitment, sacrifices and the unpleasant need to die to one’s selfish interests.  Quite often, we treat our partners like toys to be used and enjoyed, and when the novelty fades out, we get a new toy to play with.  Such people are not capable of lasting and enduring relationships because of emotional immaturity.  They are not looking for love, which demands sacrifice and commitment, but for emotional gratification.

The other route of escape is to substitute love for things.  The worldly man seeks power, ambition, money, things to replace the emptiness in his life.  He deceives himself into believing that he does not need any human love by filling up his loneliness with pleasure and work.  Setting himself on an ego trip, he enjoys being admired and honoured because of his position and importance.  He mistakes popularity and admiration from people as love.  People might admire us for our success, talents and fear us for our power and influence, but that does not mean they love us.  Without all these props, they will dump us as we are of no use to them.  Those who do not have power and influence satisfy their  sensual needs by pampering their body, thinking that gratification of one’s body is loving of oneself.  But in our quiet moments, the vacuum in our soul will cry out for fulfillment.  It is dangerous to replace the void in our hearts with the idols of life.

Finally, the so called “spiritual man” also subtly substitutes the lack of love in his life by seeking after spiritual gifts.  This desire for spiritual gifts is even more insidious and destructive, for what a person cannot acquire in the competitive world, he consciously or unconsciously obtains through spiritual powers.  Indeed, some seek spiritual gifts in order to feel that they are better than others.   Quite often, spiritual powers have been used by such people for the purpose of acquiring glory, status and even material benefits.  As it is said, power corrupts, what more if it is spiritual power, it corrupts absolutely if we do not exercise them for the benefit of others.  The ego of man is very cunning and deceptive.  Many who are serving in the Church apparently are serving God, but in truth, their motives spring from an unconscious desire to be reocognized and respected.  Otherwise, how do we explain Church members resigning when they are slighted, or their when their ideas are not accepted?

So serious is this temptation that St Paul wisely inserted the poem of love (1 Cor 13) between 1 Cor 12 and 1 Cor 14, which deal with the gifts of the Spirit.  We can be sure that there were some Christians at that time who were using these gifts of the Spirit not for humble and selfless service but to boost their ego, status and dominion over others. Hence, St Paul urged the Christians to seek for higher gifts. To desire worldly gifts will not fulfill us.  But even if we have spiritual gifts but not employ them for humble and selfless service, we will also not be happy.

Truly, all gifts must be for the service of love.  Only love can make us happy.  Only love lasts.  Love unites us and makes us whole.   We are made for love, to be loved and to love.  God is love and to be created in His image and likeness is to share in His love and to love as He loves.  To deny that we need human love is to deny the Incarnation.  God knows that we need to encounter Him through the love of our fellowmen. This explains why Jesus, before His death, gave His apostles a new commandment, which is to love one another as He has loved us. (cf Jn 15:12)

Accordingly, where do we find the capacity to love if not in God alone? Listen to what the psalmist has to tell us, “Blessed the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he has chosen for his own inheritance. May your kindness, O Lord, be upon us who have put our hope in you.”  Israel was the Chosen People of God.  We too are His Chosen Ones.  More than just His Chosen, we are adopted sons and daughters in the Son.  In Christ, we know that we are loved unconditionally.  In the Spirit, we share in Christ’s union with the Father.  So if we want to love, we must turn to the Lord to be loved by Him so that we can love with His strength.  But it is not enough to know that we are His Chosen, the children of God.  Do we feel our sonship and daughtership in our very being?  Can we truly claim our divine filiations and say proudly, “Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.”?  Unless we do, we will not be able to act out who we are, adopted sons and daughters of the Father.  Let us therefore bask in His love each day so that, renewed by His love, we can extend His love to our brothers and sisters in whom we see the face of Jesus.   What better way than to spend quiet time with the Lord in prayer and most of all, in the reception of the Eucharist!

WRITTEN BY THE MOST REV WILLIAM GOH


ARCHBISHOP OF SINGAPORE
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