20240309 SUPERFICIAL INSINCERE LOVE IS OVERCOME BY KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST
09 March 2024, Saturday, 3rd Week of Lent
First reading | Hosea 5:15-6:6 © |
What I want is love, not sacrifice and holocausts
The Lord says this:
They will search for me in their misery.
‘Come, let us return to the Lord.
He has torn us to pieces, but he will heal us;
he has struck us down, but he will bandage our wounds;
after a day or two he will bring us back to life,
on the third day he will raise us
and we shall live in his presence.
Let us set ourselves to know the Lord;
that he will come is as certain as the dawn
his judgement will rise like the light,
he will come to us as showers come,
like spring rains watering the earth.’
What am I to do with you, Ephraim?
What am I to do with you, Judah?
This love of yours is like a morning cloud,
like the dew that quickly disappears.
This is why I have torn them to pieces by the prophets,
why I slaughtered them with the words from my mouth,
since what I want is love, not sacrifice;
knowledge of God, not holocausts.
Responsorial Psalm |
Psalm 50(51):3-4,18-21 © |
What I want is love, not sacrifice.
Have mercy on me, God, in your kindness.
In your compassion blot out my offence.
O wash me more and more from my guilt
and cleanse me from my sin.
What I want is love, not sacrifice.
For in sacrifice you take no delight,
burnt offering from me you would refuse,
my sacrifice, a contrite spirit.
A humbled, contrite heart you will not spurn.
What I want is love, not sacrifice.
In your goodness, show favour to Zion:
rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
Then you will be pleased with lawful sacrifice,
burnt offerings wholly consumed.
What I want is love, not sacrifice.
Gospel Acclamation | Ps94:8 |
Glory and praise to you, O Christ!
Harden not your hearts today,
but listen to the voice of the Lord.
Glory and praise to you, O Christ!
Gospel | Luke 18:9-14 © |
The tax collector, not the Pharisee, went home justified.
Jesus spoke the following parable to some people who prided themselves on being virtuous and despised everyone else: ‘Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood there and said this prayer to himself, “I thank you, God, that I am not grasping, unjust, adulterous like the rest of mankind, and particularly that I am not like this tax collector here. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes on all I get.” The tax collector stood some distance away, not daring even to raise his eyes to heaven; but he beat his breast and said, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” This man, I tell you, went home again at rights with God; the other did not. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the man who humbles himself will be exalted.’
SUPERFICIAL INSINCERE LOVE IS OVERCOME BY KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [HOSEA 5:15 – 6:6; LUKE 18:9-14]
What is true religion? Very often, most people reduce faith to religion. Whether a person is holy is measured in terms of whether he or she is faithful to the practices of religion. We tend to judge from the external observances of religion, such as external piety, by dressing religiously, using prayerful gestures, fasting, attending worship services and religious activities. But this is what the scripture readings of today want to underscore – that true religion is not found in external practices, nor in beautiful words of praise and glory.
The prophet Hosea describes this kind of love as a superficial love. “What am I to do with you, Ephraim? What am I to do with you, Judah? This love of yours is like a morning cloud, like the dew that quickly disappears. This is why I have torn them to pieces by the prophets, why I slaughtered them with the words from my mouth, his judgement will rise like the light.” This kind of love has no commitments. We enjoy being in respectable company. We like to attend such religious functions and ceremonies. But when it comes to making sacrifices and a serious commitment to the gospel life, more than mere nominal practices of faith, we are not ready to go beyond our comfort zone. We will not make time to pray the scriptures. We do not stand up for our faith and for what we believe. We allow the world to spread worldly values as if these are the norms for life. We are not ready to defend our faith.
Indeed, in the first reading, the prophet Hosea reprimanded the people for their hypocrisy. They were not sincere in their love for God. They might go to the Temple for worship and offer the required sacrifices, but they were not living out the covenantal laws, especially in their relationship with their fellowmen. They were cheating the poor, manipulating the people and practicing social injustices. They were dishonest in their dealings, especially when doing business. So their worship of God was only with their lips, divorced from their relationship with their fellowmen. They thought God could be appeased by sacrifices when God expected them to live righteously in their relationship with their fellowmen. Love of God must be seen in their love for their neighbour. At the end of today’s scripture readings, the Lord said, “what I want is love, not sacrifice; knowledge of God, not holocausts.”
In the same vein, in today’s parable in the gospel, we have the story of two men who went to the Temple to pray. “The Pharisee stood there and said this prayer to himself, ‘I thank you, God, that I am not grasping, unjust, adulterous like the rest of mankind, and particularly that I am not like this tax collector here. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes on all I get.'” Like most people, we tend to think that we have to earn God’s favours to prove that we are worthy of His love by doing all the things required of us. He thought highly of himself and compared himself favourably to others. He was unaware of himself. He was practically justifying himself. He had no real love for God nor love for his fellowmen. It was all about himself and all that he had achieved and done. Hence, our Lord said, he returned without being reconciled with God since he justified himself without God. He did not know God! He thought of God wrongly. Only the tax collector knew the heart of God. Because he knew God’s heart, he felt God understood his struggles and loneliness and guilt.
Consequently, it is important that as we come to the end of the third week of Lent, the half-way mark of the Lenten season, we need to remind ourselves the real purpose of our spiritual exercises. The first part of Lent is focused on the three pillars of the spiritual exercises which were elaborated in the gospel on Ash Wednesday, namely, prayer, fasting and almsgiving. The danger is that many of us associate Lent with these three spiritual exercises. Lent is always identified with penance, prayer and sacrifices. For this reason, many people do not like Lent because it restrains their joy, freedom and living life fully. Yet, this is not the real intention of Lent, to make us miserable and lifeless!
Rather, it is an invitation to real repentance and a change of heart by knowing God and falling in love with Him. This is what the psalmist wrote, “Have mercy on me, God, in your kindness. In your compassion blot out my offence. O wash me more and more from my guilt and cleanse me from my sin. For in sacrifice, you take no delight, burnt offering from me you would refuse, my sacrifice, a contrite spirit. A humbled, contrite heart you will not spurn. In your goodness, show favour to Zion: rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Then you will be pleased with lawful sacrifice, burnt offerings wholly consumed.” What God is asking of us is not burnt offering, unless it is but an expression of a sincere and contrite heart. God cannot be bribed or appeased by external sacrifices and holocausts. He has no need of our sacrifices.
What God desires is not for Himself but for us. This is why He said, The Lord said, “what I want is love, not sacrifice; knowledge of God, not holocausts.” The Lord wants us to strengthen our relationship with Him, growing in love and in knowledge of Him. God is inviting us to build a relationship of love with Him. He wants us to have a personal relationship with Him. We must not conduct ourselves with Him thinking that we need to prove our worth to Him. All He is asking of us is to love Him just as He loves us, unconditionally. Loving Him is to allow Him to enter into our lives. Love is always transforming and empowering.
It is love that makes all sacrifices worthy, and not the sacrifices we do per se, unless they are expressions of love. This explains why the psalmist prayed, “In your goodness, show favour to Zion: rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Then you will be pleased with lawful sacrifice, burnt offerings wholly consumed.” When something is offered in love, it is always pleasing to us. When people are obligated to do things for us, we do not feel much joy in receiving their services or gifts because we know that they are not doing it out of love for us but a sense of obligation at most, or to oblige us to do things for them in future. It is not an unconditional gift made out of love but with an ulterior motive to get something from us in return. This is what some pagans do when it comes to worshipping their gods. They offer sacrifices to control them or to manipulate them into giving them something much more precious than what they give to the gods.
Love is purified through knowledge of the person. In our relationship with Jesus, our love is purified when we begin to know Him more and understand His heart and His mind. This is why the Lord spoke through the prophet that He wants us to grow in knowledge of Him. Many of us have wrong images of God and so imagine Him to be like some other pagan deities that need to be appeased or be bought over, or be controlled, so that He would be on our side. This God is a God of grace and mercy. He seeks to love us unconditionally. He wants to be known as a God of mercy and compassion. He wants us to respond to His love genuinely, not under compulsion or coercion. He leaves us free to love Him.
This is why in the second half of the season of Lent, the focus changes from speaking about repentance of sins through the spiritual exercises, to the person and identity of Jesus, His salvific mission, from the fourth Sunday of Lent onwards. Using the text from the gospel of John, the liturgy seeks to deepen our understanding of who Jesus is, His divine identity and His work of reconciliation. Jesus comes to offer us new life. He comes to give us life abundantly. (Jn 10:10) He is our good shepherd. Only when we know Jesus’ identity, His mission, His love for us, can we then fall in love with Him and seek to share in His mission as well.
So let us take heed of the invitation of our Lord to return to Him. “Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces, but he will heal us; he has struck us down, but he will bandage our wounds; after a day or two he will bring us back to life, on the third day he will raise us and we shall live in his presence. Let us set ourselves to know the Lord; that he will come is as certain as the dawn, he will come to us as showers come, like spring rains watering the earth.” We must deepen our love for Him so that we can truly change our lives and repent of our selfish and individualistic lifestyles. Instead, as we love Him more and know His message of eternal life and His values by which He lived, we too want to share His life and love, and also be a great instrument of love, mercy and hope to others. We too live for others.
Written by His Eminence, Cardinal William SC Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved.
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