201801001
COMMON VOCATION OF
LOVE
01 OCTOBER,
2018, Monday, St Therese of the Child Jesus
IS 66:1014
10 “Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her,
all
you who love her;
rejoice
with her in joy,
all
you who mourn over her;
11 that you may suck and be satisfied
with
her consoling breasts;
that
you may drink deeply with delight
from
the abundance of her glory.”
12 For thus says the Lord:
“Behold,
I will extend prosperity to her like a river,
and
the wealth of the nations like an overflowing stream;
and
you shall suck, you shall be carried upon her hip,
and
dandled upon her knees.
13 As one whom his mother comforts,
so I
will comfort you;
you
shall be comforted in Jerusalem.
14 You shall see, and your heart shall rejoice;
your
bones shall flourish like the grass;
and
it shall be known that the hand of the Lord is with his servants,
and
his indignation is against his enemies.
PS131
1 O Lord,
my heart is not lifted up,
my
eyes are not raised too high;
I do
not occupy myself with things
too
great and too marvelous for me.
2 But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like
a child quieted at its mother’s breast;
like
a child that is quieted is my soul.
3 O Israel, hope in the Lord
from
this time forth and for evermore.
1 Cor 13-4-13
4 Love is patient and kind;
love is not jealous or boastful; 5 it is not
arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or
resentful; 6 it does not
rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. 7 Love bears all things,
believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends; as for
prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for
knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For our knowledge
is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; 10 but when the
perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. 11 When I was a
child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child;
when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see
in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall
understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. 13 So
faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
MT18:1-5
1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the
greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 And calling to
him a child, he put him in the midst of them, 3 and said, “Truly,
I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter
the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever humbles
himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
5 “Whoever receives one such
child in my name receives me;
COMMON VOCATION OF LOVE
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [ IS 66:10-14; PS 131; 1 COR 13:4-13; MT 18:1-5 ]
What do we all really
seek in life? Not things, not power, not fame but simply to be loved and
to love. It
is love that makes sense of life. In truth, we do not need very much to
be happy. Indeed, when we have all these things, we will eventually come
to realize the vanity of our pursuits because they are nothing in the
end. They cannot bring real happiness, meaning and fulfillment.
That is why, St Paul ended his long exposition on the gifts of the Spirit by
saying, “But strive for the greater gifts. And I will show you a still more
excellent way.” (1 Cor 12:31)
What is the highest goal
in life we should strive for if not love alone? Indeed, nothing can replace love in
life. What do children seek from their parents? They do not want
things. Parents often substitute their time with their children by compensating
them with things. What they want is a personal relationship with their
parents, one that is supportive, caring, understanding, patient, forgiving and
encouraging. This is what gives the child self-confidence, knowing that
he or she is loved unconditionally and that there is someone in this world who
continues to trust in him or her even when he or she is difficult and naughty
at times. It is the lack of love that makes us suffer from insecurity and
low self-esteem. This pushes us to ambition and trying to win over the
love of others and their approval at all costs.
St Theresa discovered
this truth for herself.
She wrote, “Since my longing for martyrdom was powerful and unsettling, I
turned to the epistles of St. Paul in the hope of finally finding an answer. By
chance the 12th and 13th chapters of the 1st epistle to the Corinthians caught
my attention, and in the first section I read that not everyone can be an
apostle, prophet or teacher, that the Church is composed of a variety of
members, and that the eye cannot be the hand. Even with such an answer revealed
before me, I was not satisfied and did not find peace. I persevered in the
reading and did not let my mind wander until I found this encouraging theme:
Set your desires on the greater gifts. And I will show you the way which
surpasses all others. For the Apostle insists that the greater gifts are
nothing at all without love and that this same love is surely the best path
leading directly to God. At length I had found peace of mind.”
Indeed, St Theresa knew
that there is only one vocation in this world. It is the vocation of love.
Regardless of what we do in life or whatever state of life we have chosen, all
of us are called to love without exception. Every vocation, every career,
every situation is an invitation to love God and our fellowmen. It does
not matter whether we are priests, religious or single or married. She
said, “When I had looked upon the mystical body of the Church, I recognised
myself in none of the members which St. Paul described, and what is more, I
desired to distinguish myself more favourably within the whole body. Love
appeared to me to be the hinge for my vocation. I knew that the Church
had a heart and that such a heart appeared to be aflame with love.”
Indeed, only in the
context of love do the gifts that God has endowed us with become
meaningful. St
Paul in placing chapter 13 on the theme of love between chapters 12 and 14 on
the gifts of the Spirit wants us to remember that all gifts must be exercised
for the service of love. The gifts themselves cannot make us happy unless
they are shared and used meaningfully for the good of others. In love we
found joy and strength. We are not to be puffed up by our talents, wealth and resources.
This will only harm us further. But we must receive with gratitude and
thanksgiving and use them for the love of the mystical body of Christ. “To each
is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” (1 Cor 12:7)
Love is the foundation
of the mission of the Church.
St Theresa wrote, “I knew that one love drove the members of the Church to
action, that if this love were extinguished, the apostles would have proclaimed
the Gospel no longer, the martyrs would have shed their blood no more. I saw
and realised that love sets off the bounds of all vocations, that love is
everything, that this same love embraces every time and every place. In one
word, that love is everlasting. Then, nearly ecstatic with the supreme
joy in my soul, I proclaimed: O Jesus, my love, at last I have found my
calling: my call is love.”
Love in all things and
in our actions is the key to holiness. St Theresa makes it clear that it is not
when we do heroic deeds that God will be happy with us. Rather, unless we
do everything out of love, all will be done in vain. St Paul says, “If I give
away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do
not have love, I gain nothing.” (1 Cor 13:3) The truth is that we do many
things in life out of obligation and duty and responsibility but lack
love. We don’t realize this but that is the way we “love” our loved ones.
We take care of the children, of our spouse and elderly. We make sure
their needs are taken care of but often we do them grudgingly and even at times
unwillingly. We are not loving in our actions but perform like them like
a servant, as a duty and a chore. St Theresa said, “You know well enough
that our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, nor even
at their difficulty, but at the love with which we do them.”
What we need to do to
transform work and chores into means for holiness is when we put in love in all
that we do. When we are
motivated by love and do everything for the love of God and neighbor, this is
what holiness is all about. It is about emptying ourselves for the other
person. It is about tolerating the weakness of another, his or her
eccentricities, as St Theresa did for one of her sisters and continued to smile
at her and loved her even though she made herself a nuisance. When we do
little things out of love and for love, we grow in holiness. We can
become a saint just by doing ordinary things in an extraordinary way when we
make every action a deed of love that comes from the heart. Indeed, in a
world so permeated with individualism and materialism, and arrogance that comes
from intellectual knowledge, St Theresa shows that the way to live our lives
meaningfully is to walk the humble path of love and that gives meaning to all
that we do.
But we all know how
difficult it is to love. The
greatest way to love is not to reach out to the whole world (this is not
excluded), but to love people in your backyard. St Theresa herself
had a strong sense of what it meant to love Christ, if not to love the Church,
the community that we are in. Community living is the place where we are
purified in our love for God and neighbour. She lived with the same
women in the monastery for nine years. Some of them lacked social graces
and good judgement. Some were uneducated, uncouth and insensitive to
others. Instead of running away from the problems and challenges, she
committed herself to loving them and being a good Samaritan to heal them by a
good deed, an encouraging word or a smile. Holiness and love is an
invitation to self-emptying and giving ourselves to others. Instead of
being focused on ourselves and our needs, we are called to focus on the needs
and sufferings of others. She lived an ordinary life of grace, dealing
with the daily crosses of life, practising sacrificial love to unkind people.
That is why, we must
first sit at the feet of Jesus and our Mother Church to draw strength to love. St Theresa teaches us that the
path to holiness is through ‘The Little Way’, which is one of child-like love
and trust in God. She offered all her small acts of unconditional love
for Christ which she called her “Little Way.” She sought to remain a
child of God, to live in love and work through love. In spite of her
littleness, poverty and helplessness, she surrendered all her inadequacies to
the Lord. She said to the Lord, “Jesus, I ask You for nothing but peace and
love, infinite love without any limits, other than Yourself, love which is no
longer I, but you.”
The real knowledge of
God is not intellectual knowledge of Him but to know Him as love. St Paul wrote, “Love does not come
to an end. 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.” When we know God is love, and that He loves us, we will
be able to find the strength and that capacity to love as He has loved us.
This is what the first
reading is inviting us to do. Like St Theresa, we must come to the fount
of love and mercy in Christ. “Rejoice
Jerusalem! That you may be suckled, filled, from her consoling breast. At
her breast will her nurslings be carried and fondled in her lap. Like a
son comforted by his mother will I comfort you.” Just as a mother would
embrace all her children regardless whether they are intelligent, with low IQ,
weak or strong, so too God embraces us all and would not refuse us any help,
especially to those who are weak and vulnerable. This is what the Lord
said to us. “And so, the one who makes himself as little as this little child
is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Anyone who welcomes a little child
like this in my name welcomes me.”
Yes, in humility we must
turn to the Lord, knowing how weak
and ignorant we are with regard to what love entails and what depth is His love
for us. The Lord reminds us that the way to the kingdom is much
easier that we thought. He said, “I tell you solemnly, unless you change
and become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of
heaven.” With the psalmist, we say, “O my Lord, within my heart
pride will have no home. Every talent that I have comes from you alone.
Lord, my eyes do not look high nor my thoughts take wings for I can find
treasures in ordinary things.”
Written
by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All
Rights Reserved
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