John 14; 23-29. Fifth Sunday in Easter. May 1st, 2015
The last few weeks we have been speaking about the deepest form of love known to man, that of Agape love. Agape love is a sacrificial love, a human love elevated to the divine. Agape love is only possible in a human heart to the degree that that human heart offers itself in love to the God who loved us first- this begins at our baptism and grows through worthy reception of the other Sacraments, along with intimate daily prayer and the living out of our beautiful Catholic Faith.
Our Gospel today shows us how God loved us first. Our Lord here, is preparing to enter into His passion and death in which he would prove his love for us with the greatest act of agape love the world as ever seen. Jesus in divine love would totally pour Himself out sacrificially for love of each one of us on the Cross-God would die on the cross for us.
And so, it is in the preparation for His passion that Jesus says to us, “If a man love me, he will keep my word and my Father will love him and we shall come to him and make our home with him.” Loving Jesus first and foremost and above all else is the key to the Father’s Love.
But this love for Jesus must be shown and expressed through action. After all, love is shown in deeds, not in sweet words. And so as Jesus says, love for Him is shown in obedience to God's Holy Word. Obeying God’s Holy Word means keeping His commandments and living according to His teachings, which come to us through His Holy Catholic Church. It is in and through the Church that we have been promised the Holy Spirit to help us understand this truth and to be our Diving Helper in living it in our lives. If we do our part, the Holy Spirit will help us to learn and understand the Church’s teaching so we can apply them in everyday life.
It is this obedience to the truth in our lives that brings us the peace that the world cannot give. Because the world rejects this truth and refuses to live in obedience to God’s Truth, the world has no peace. Rejection of the truth is ultimately a refusal to love God, by refusing to live one’s life in obedience to the truth that comes from God. The result is a lack of peace. And if there is one thing that defines our world today, it is a lack of peace; not just exterior peace but most especially inner peace, peace of soul.
I think it was Pope VI that once said; “Peace is much more than just a lack of conflict or war.” Many people in the world mistakenly think that all of our advancements in technology are going to give us peace and make us happy. Instead, in the last thirty to forty years the increases in the amount of crime, violence, and moral degradation in our society have surpassed what many of us ever dreamed possible, not to mention the fear of terrorism and war. Peace is more elusive than ever. And what takes its place is a general feeling of insecurity and outright fear. Everyone deep down knows things are not as they should be, and this leads to an even greater increase of fear, fear of what the future may hold.
As result, we see a fear of giving oneself in agape love to another, especially to God. We see this manifested in fear of making lifelong commitments to one’s vocation, whether in marriage or the religious life; fear of bringing new life into the world; and above all, fear of not being loved. Psychiatrists and other therapist are literally swamped with clients, depression is rampant, and suicide is on the increase, in fact epidemic especially among our youth, who have more material goods than any other generation in history.
And what is the remedy that most turn to in order to alleviate this fear, fear which stems from a lack of peace? Diversion; noise, lots of noise, TV, music, sex, computer games, pornography, drugs- baseless entertainment and amusement, the list is long. Our generation craves diversion, because it lacks peace. What is the solution?
The solution is to turn back to the love of God. This begins by setting the diversions aside, especially the diversion of noise and returning in silence to the One who speaks in silence…the living and true God. In silence, alone with oneself and alone with God, we can hear the voice of God who speaks in the silence to our heart; and we can respond to Him still small voice with ours through intimate prayer, heart speaking to heart; heart giving itself to heart.
A few years ago, you may remember there was an interesting movie that was all about silence before God. It was actually entitled, “Into the Great Silence.” This three-hour movie about the lives of Carthusian monks in the French alps had hardly any spoken words at all, and yet, the movie was a surprise hit. What is it that made this movie about silence so appealing to such a noisy world?
One of the comments about the monks in the movie is that they live in no fear…they live with peace, the peace that they have acquired through the years of silently nurturing their relationship with God. They have deepened their faith that they are indeed sons of a loving Father who loves them, each of them with a unique unfathomable love. If we only knew what it means to be a beloved
son and daughter of God we would have no fear only trust.
In their faith in Jesus Christ and their striving to live in obedience to His words found in Sacred Scripture and interpreted by the Holy Spirit speaking through the Church, the monks have found that solace that the human heart looks for, the solace that comes from living the world behind and living for love of God alone. And this is really the test in this life isn't it?; whether we turn to human beings and to the things of this world for our solace, or turn to God…Jesus I trust in you.
I am not suggesting we become Carthusian monks, but we do enter more into silence in the presence of God, and we have to have the living obedient faith of Carthusian monks. In other words, we need show our love for Jesus by obeying His words, His commandments and teachings and trusting in Him alone.
And like the Carthusian monks, we need to come in contact whenever and however much we can with God in silent prayer before God in the Holy Eucharist both at Holy Mass and whenever we can before His physical presence in the tabernacle. The Holy Mass is the Sacrament instituted by Christ in order to bring the world peace because it makes truly present in the Holy Eucharist the One who is the King of Peace, along with His sacrifice of Agape love for us.*(see note below).
In reality, the more that faith in the Mass and the Holy Eucharist is lost, the more the Mass and the Eucharist is ignored or treated as a time for feel good noisy entertainment, instead of a time for a silent intimate reverential encounter with the living God in adoration and worship, the more we will lack peace and live in fear. This is why the Church has reminded us over and over again to make ample time for periods of sacred silence during Mass. But so sadly us moderns often try to fill every moment of the Mass with noise.
Thomas Merton summed this all up nicely when he wrote, “Silence is not a virtue, noise is not a sin, it is true, but the turmoil and confusion and constant noise of modern society are the expressions of the ambiance of its greatest sins—its godlessness, its despair. A world of propaganda, of endless argument, vituperation, criticism, or simply of chatter is a world without anything to live for…Mass becomes racket and confusion; prayers—an exterior or interior noise” (Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas).
Therefore if you want truly peace and to live without fear, come in silence before the Holy Eucharist and in faith adore and love the living resurrected Jesus silently but really present there. It’s hard for us to do this because of the silence. The Eucharist makes no earthly noise, it is true, but it is in that sacred silence before the living God truly present in the Holy Eucharist that we will find the peace that we are looking for, the peace that the world cannot give because it is in the Holy Eucharist that we will find the strength to love God with deeds, in obedience to His truth. And then, then we will be able to love Him with an agape love and love others with a agape love for love of Him, for He will come and make His Home in us, and place His own love alive in our souls and in our hearts; then and only then will we truly have peace.
I want to end with a saying from Mother Theresa of Calcutta. She learned agape love in adoration, in silent contemplation before the Eucharist. There she learned to see the true face of God in every suffering human being and showed her love for God by obedience to His word which resulted in her life of peace, lived in service to God and neighbor. Mother of Theresa said…
The fruit of silence is PRAYER.
The fruit of prayer is FAITH.
The fruit of faith is LOVE.
The fruit of love is SERVICE.
The fruit of service is PEACE.
And I would dare to add, the fruit of peace is complete trust in and abandonment to God and His Holy Will without fear!!
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*By the way, this is what is meant at the sign of peace during the Mass. The sign of peace is not just about us sharing our peace with one another…it is about receiving Christ’s peace. The priest looks down at Jesus truly present in the Eucharist (or at least he should) as he says, “Jesus Christ, you said to your apostles, I leave you peace my peace I give you…and then the priest receives it from the Eucharist and offers it to the people whose hearts are open to receive it, by saying, "the Peace of Christ be with you…(literally)". He then invites those present to share Jesus' peace (they have just received) with one other.
The Holy Father once reminded us that this action is not meant to be a free for all…first and foremost we are sharing Jesus peace with one another, not our own peace. For this reason the sharing of the peace of Christ is to be done in a subdued manner with person next to you, who passes it on…it is not suppose to be an attempt to shake every single person’s hand around you. It’s not about us, it’s about Christ; the peace comes from Christ, not from each other and so our attention should stay on the Eucharist, not on each other.
The peace of Christ that comes to us is an assurance of spiritual, saving strength that goes beyond a simple gesture or simple words. The peace of the Lord is not given as the world gives peace. Christ’s peace is not an absence of conflict or suffering. It is a peace that comes from knowing that we are God’s children who depend totally on Him for everything-everything and that we will never have true peace until we turn to him for everything and love him above everything, above everything this world has to offer. It is a peace that comes from loving God and showing this love by living in obedience to his commandments and His Catholic Church.
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