20190723 THE
BEGINNING OF FAITH IS LOVE
22 JULY, 2019,
Monday, St Mary Magdalene
Readings at Mass
Liturgical Colour:
White.
|
First reading
|
|
Song of Songs 3:1-4 ©
|
|
I found him whom my heart loves
|
The bride says this:
On my bed, at night, I sought him
whom my heart loves.
I sought but did not find him.
So I will rise and go through the City;
in the streets and in the squares
I will seek him whom my heart loves.
I sought but did not find him.
The watchmen came upon me
on their rounds in the City:
‘Have you seen him whom my heart loves?’
Scarcely had I passed them
when I found him whom my heart loves.
|
Responsorial Psalm
|
|
Psalm 62(63):2-6,8-9 ©
|
For you my soul is
thirsting, O Lord my God.
O God, you are my God, for you I long;
for you my soul is thirsting.
My body pines for you
like a dry, weary land without
water.
For you my soul is
thirsting, O Lord my God.
So I gaze on you in the sanctuary
to see your strength and your
glory.
For your love is better than life,
my lips will speak your
praise.
For you my soul is
thirsting, O Lord my God.
So I will bless you all my life,
in your name I will lift up my
hands.
My soul shall be filled as with a banquet,
my mouth shall praise you with
joy.
For you my soul is
thirsting, O Lord my God.
For you have been my help;
in the shadow of your wings I
rejoice.
My soul clings to you;
your right hand holds me fast.
For you my soul is
thirsting, O Lord my God.
|
Gospel Acclamation
|
Alleluia, alleluia!
Tell us, Mary: say
what thou didst see upon the way.
– The tomb the Living did enclose;
I saw Christ’s glory as he rose!
Alleluia!
The following reading
is proper to the memorial, and must be used even if you have otherwise chosen
to use the ferial readings.
|
Gospel
|
|
John 20:1-2,11-18 ©
|
|
'Mary, go and find the brothers and tell
them'
|
It was very early on the first day of the
week and still dark, when Mary of Magdala came to the tomb. She saw that the
stone had been moved away from the tomb and came running to Simon Peter and the
other disciple, the one Jesus loved. ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb’
she said ‘and we don’t know where they have put him.’
Meanwhile Mary stayed outside
near the tomb, weeping. Then, still weeping, she stooped to look inside, and
saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been, one at the
head, the other at the feet. They said, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ ‘They
have taken my Lord away’ she replied ‘and I don’t know where they have put
him.’ As she said this she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, though
she did not recognise him. Jesus said, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you
looking for?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said, ‘Sir, if you have
taken him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will go and remove him.’
Jesus said, ‘Mary!’ She knew him then and said to him in Hebrew,
‘Rabbuni!’ – which means Master. Jesus said to her, ‘Do not cling to me,
because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go and find the brothers,
and tell them: I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your
God.’ So Mary of Magdala went and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord
and that he had said these things to her.
THE BEGINNING OF
FAITH IS LOVE
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [SONG 3:1-4; OR 2 COR 5:14-17; PS 63: 2.3-4.5-6.8-9; JN 20: 1-2. 11-18]
Pope Emeritus Benedict
in his first encyclical gave us the foundation of Christian Faith, which is
faith in God’s love in Christ.
He wrote, “‘God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God
abides in him’ (1 Jn 4:16). These
words from the First Letter of John express with remarkable clarity
the heart of the Christian faith: the Christian image of God and the resulting
image of mankind and its destiny. In the same verse, Saint John also offers a
kind of summary of the Christian life: ‘We have come to know and to believe in
the love God has for us’. We have come to believe in God’s love: in these
words the Christian can express the fundamental decision of his life. Being
Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the
encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a
decisive direction. Saint John’s Gospel describes that event in these words:
‘God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him
should … have eternal life’ (3:16).” (Deus Est Caritas, 1)
Indeed, falling in love
with Jesus is the beginning of faith.
Whether a Christian is passionate about his or her faith is dependent on his or
her passion for the Lord. If one lacks passion for Christ and the gospel,
it is obvious that he or she has not yet come to believe in God’s love for him
or her. They may apparently be doing Church work but not because they are
motivated by God’s love but because that is the way to feel secure, respected
and loved. Some are motivated by fear of punishment and guilt.
Others do God’s work out of routine and to make themselves useful. This
is particularly true of Church leaders, workers, the clergy and religious who
have been serving so long in the Church that they have become jaded and lost
their passion and enthusiasm.
Yet, in today’s feast of
Mary Magdalene, we see someone who is so deeply in love with the Lord. In the gospel, we read that she was
the first woman to go to the tomb to look for the body of Jesus. She was
in tears when she found that His body was missing. We can imagine her
loss, caused not just by the death of her master, but even the body was
missing! Hence, she was inconsolable, sitting in the garden
weeping. She could not forget how the Lord delivered her from the seven
demons. She was eternally grateful for the great love the Lord had for
her and how He gave her back her dignity.
As a consequence, she
was made an apostle to the apostles. Jesus
entrusted to her the mission of telling the apostles that He had risen.
Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, because I have not yet ascended
to my Father. But go and find the brothers, and tell them: I am ascending to my
Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Jesus could entrust this
responsibility to her only because He knew her love for Him was
unshakeable. Only a person who loves can testify with conviction,
passion, and fearlessly. Jesus knew that many would use their reason and
would be skeptical of His resurrection. They lacked the faith of Mary
Magdalene because they lacked love for the Lord. Only a person who loved
the Lord and have a deep faith in Him can inspire others to faith.
This was so in the life
of St Paul in the second reading.
He wrote, “The love of Christ overwhelms us when we reflect that if one man has
died for all, then all men should be dead; and the reason he died for all was
so that living men should live no longer for themselves, but for him who died
and was raised to life for them.” St Paul was converted because he
experienced the merciful love of Christ for him on his way to Damascus.
In spite of the fact that in ignorance, he was persecuting the Christians, the
Lord revealed Himself to Paul, forgave him his sins, and made him an apostle to
the Gentiles. (cf 1 Tim 1:12-17)
Indeed, when we look at
the growth of the Church and the lives of the saints and martyrs, they were all
motivated by their love for Christ.
In the life of St Theresa of the Child Jesus, she showed great faith in her
suffering simply because she suffered in love. She realized that her
vocation was to love and love was the heart of the Church, the gospel. “My
Lord, I love you” sums up her whole vocation and the key to her spirituality
and her understanding of the gospel. She came to realize through reading
the gospel that it basically revealed to us the mercy of God, His love for us
and the invitation to love Him in faith. When we read the gospel with the
eyes of love, we derive more than a theologian who just studies the scripture
using academic and scientific tools. For this reason, she was named a
doctor of the Church by Pope John Paul II because she was an expert in the
science of love.
This is so true as well
in the lives of our faithful. The ordinary faithful might not be well grounded
in theology and scriptures, nor are they able to explain all the complexity of
the Church’s doctrines, but they have a deep love for the Lord. The people who are most likely to
die for Jesus and for the faith are the ordinary faithful who have encountered
God’s love and love Him deeply. Theologians, clergymen and religious may
have more academic knowledge about the scripture and the doctrines of the
Church, but they do not necessarily have more faith than the ordinary lay
person. This is because they use their head, not their heart, whereas the
lay person who is moved by the Lord experiences Him through the sacraments,
sacramentals and popular devotions such as Divine Mercy, Sacred Heart of Jesus,
Marian devotion, etc, which appeal to the sentiments of the heart, are more
likely to surrender their life to the Lord in love and faith.
The truth remains that
Christianity is not an ideology. It is a commitment to a person, not even
to the Gospel as a book.
No one dies for an ideology. There are so many forms of thinking.
We can change ideology once we are convinced. But commitment to a
person requires not just the head but the heart. Thus, when the Church
speaks of the gospel, it is always in singular, not in plural, unless it is
referring to the four books of the gospel. To speak of the gospel is to
speak of Christ because He is the Gospel, the Good News in person. Jesus
is the Word of God. If we read the gospel or the bible, it is in order
that we might come to know the person, the heart and mind of Jesus, not simply
for more information or knowledge of the bible. Only when we are
committed to Jesus as a person, would we be willing to die for Him because we
love Him. For the sake of love, as St Paul said, we would be willing to
give up our life for our beloved.
Today, as we celebrate
the feast of Mary Magdalene, we too must learn from her, to cultivate a heart
relationship with the Lord. Are we willing to open our heart to Him and not just
think about Him? St Teresa of Avila taught us that in prayer, we should
feel more and think less. Thinking alone cannot lead us to experience His
personal love for us. Feelings draw two persons together because they
beat with one heart. For the sake of love, we will die for our
beloved. That is why love consumes our entire being as it did for Mary
Magdalene. When a man and a woman fall in love with each other, they want
to possess the other person and be possessed entirely. That is why when a
woman falls in love with a man, she becomes protective, possessive, jealous and
resentful of those who attempt to take her beloved away from her. William
Congreve wrote, “Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury
like a woman scorned.”
Yet, we must not reduce
faith simply to an emotional relationship. This can be disastrous not just to the person
but in our relationship with others. We can become fanatical, like a man
or woman who is infatuated. We lose our sense of proportion and sobriety
in life. This was what happened to Mary Magdalene. So, the Lord had
to raise her above an emotional attachment to His earthly body to a mystical
encounter with Him. “Do not cling to me, because I have not yet ascended
to my Father.” St Paul said a similar thing, “Anyone who is in Christ,
there is a new creation; the old creation has gone.”
Written
by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All
Rights Reserved
No comments:
Post a Comment