John 14: 23-29. Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time. May 26th, 2019.
The last few weeks in the Gospel readings we have been hearing Jesus calling us to the deepest form of love. It is a love that surpasses anything that man is capable of on his own power. Unfortunately, our English translations almost always use the word “love” to describe it. However, “love” is certainly not the best of words, for the love that Jesus calls us to is Charity. Charity is human love elevated and united, through grace, to divine love—elevated and united to the God who is Charity.
Charity is only possible in a human heart to the degree that that human heart trustingly offers itself in totally self-giving love to the God who loved us first- this begins at our baptism and grows through worthy reception of the Holy Mass and the other Sacraments, along with intimate daily prayer and the living out of our beautiful Catholic Faith through the human virtues animated with the theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and of course, Charity.
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 love the world has ever seen. Jesus in divine love, in Charity, 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 He would do so, not just to save us, but in order to be able to give himself has a gift to us in the Holy Eucharist. In this sacrificial offering we discover that the God who has given us the very gift of existence, isn’t content to stop there, he offers us the gift of himself in the Person of Jesus, His Son present in Risen Body in the Holy Eucharist.
And so, it is in the preparation for His passion that Jesus says to us, “If a man loves 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 receiving the Father’s Love in its fullness. It is an act of gratitude to the God who has given us everything, and this gratitude can only be expressed in the offering of our self to the Father through Jesus in order to be united to God in Charity, to the God who is Charity.
But this love for Jesus must be shown and expressed through virtuous action. After all, love—charity 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, which he leaves with us, 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 bring 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 to the truth that leads to 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. In fact, these technological advancements have led, at least partially, to the ideal that man can live a moral life, a good life, a flourishing life, apart from God and His Commandments, and especially apart from God’s first commandment which is to love Him above all else and adore and worship him according to His dictates, not our own. Our generation even seeks to use its technological advancements to overcome death apart from the power of the Resurrection of Jesus, which is the power of the divine and human love known as Charity, which is stronger than death. But even if he were to succeed, which he will not, to live forever without God and his love is not paradise but hell.
The result of this pride of man-this self-exaltation of man is nothing but an astronomical increase in the amount of crime, violence, and moral degradation in our society, which have surpassed what many of us never 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.
All of this has led to a degradation of man himself, who fails to see that his greatest lies in his relationship with His Creator. As result, we see a fear of giving oneself in love to the other, especially to God-this fear is manifested either in outright atheism or at least a practical atheism in which one speaks of God but lives one’s life contrary to God’s truth. 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 epidemic.
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 through noise, because it lacks peace; it hates silence; it is afraid of silence.
In his book, The Power of Silence over the Dictatorship of Noise, Cardinal Sarah, who is the head of the office in the Vatican that oversees the liturgy, including how the Holy Mass is celebrated, speaks of this atheism and noisiness:
“Postmodern man seeks to anesthetize his own atheism. Noises are screens that betray a fear of the divine, a fear of real life and of death. But “what man can live and never see death? Who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol?” (Ps 89:48). The Western world ends up disguising death so as to make it acceptable and joyful. The moment of demise becomes a noisy moment in which true silence is lost in weak, useless words expressing compassion.”
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 alone.
Now, I am not suggesting we all become Carthusian monks, but we do need to 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 the power to this comes through silence, spending intimate time with him apart from the dictatorship of the noise that this world offers.
Again, Cardinal Sarah:
“It is necessary to protect precious silence from all parasitical noise. The noise of our “ego”, which never stops claiming its rights, plunging us into an excessive preoccupation with ourselves. The noise of our memory, which draws us toward the past, that of our recollections or of our sins. The noise of temptations or of acedia (sloth), the spirit of gluttony, lust, avarice, anger, sadness, vanity, pride—in short: everything that makes up the spiritual combat that man must wage every day. In order to silence these parasitical noises, in order to consume everything in the sweet flame of the Holy Spirit, silence is the supreme antidote.”
And so 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 silence of our inner room, that is our heart and listen. And especially we need to come in silent faith before 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 love for us, which made visible the love…no, which made visible the Charity that God has for us.*
In reality, the more that faith in the Holy Mass and the Holy Eucharist is lost, the more the Mass 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 too often try to fill every moment of the Holy 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).
Cardinal Sarah put it this way:
“Why are men so noisy during the liturgies while Christ's prayer was silent? The words of the Son of God come from the heart, and the heart is silent. Why do we not know how to speak with a silent heart? The heart of Jesus does not speak. It radiates with love because its language comes from the divine depths."
Therefore if you truly want peace, 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, I didn’t say silence is easy. 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 give ourselves to him entirely, and He and the Father will come and make their 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 to 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; and others experienced the Charity of God through her. 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 by offering ourselves to God through Charity !!
