LOVE

Quinquagesima

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Yesterday at our Mardi Gras Dinner Dance, the focus of the music was not just celebrating before Lent began, but love.  There were love songs everywhere, and different descriptions of love.  Whether the dances were upbeat, or whether it was a chance to slow down, most of the music had to deal with love.
    There are a great many love songs, both past and present, in the genre of country music and the genre of pop or lite-rock.  Songs express movements of the heart that words sometimes cannot adequately convey.  Songs like “All for Love” by Rod Stewart; or “Through the Years” by Kenny Rogers; songs like “At Last” by Etta James; or “I Just Called to Say I Love You” by Stevie Wonder.  There’s even the classic song entitled “LOVE” which many crooners have sung, or the more recent “Love Story” by Taylor Swift.
    In all these songs, love is described as some kind of reaction in the individual, a rush of warm, gooey goodness, a delight in the other.  It is, often something that another does to the self, an affirmation of goodness.  And even St. Thomas describes love (as often quoted by Bishop Robert Barron) as willing the good of the other.  But St. Paul the Apostle also describes love in the epistle we heard today, and while I’m not sure you could quite put it to a pop tune or a country melody, because it is the Word of God, it should guide how we understand love in our daily lives, more so than any secular music does.
    This Pauline hymn of love talks about the actions that love accomplishes.  One loves by demonstrating patience and kindness.  Love does not allow envy to enter in, nor seeks ambition over the other.  Love does not lead to anger, nor to evil, nor joy in sin, but, rather, rejoices in the truth.  Love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never fails.”  You could have everything in the world, but if you don’t have love you have nothing, and this even includes spiritual gifts like speaking in tongues or prophesying and the ability to move mountains.  Love is not about me but about thee.  
    And as we come to this Quinquagesima Sunday, this last Sunday before we enter into Lent, we see the love of our Lord as He prepares for the Passion ahead of him.  He takes His special friends, His Apostles, and speaks to them aside from everyone else to let them know that they are going to Jerusalem so that the Son of Man can suffer and die.  Love draws our Lord to a task harder than we could ever imagine, not because of how painful it was physically, but because in Christ, it is not just a human going to suffer who suffers each day, but Life itself who was going to die, Holiness Incarnate who would take upon Himself the sins, not just of those around Him, but from every time and place, from the foundation of the world until its final consummation at the end of time.  We suffer and we go from being to non-being because we know that we are finite and we will have a limit on this earth.  Christ was the creator of the heavens and the earth, the eternal Logos whom the heavens and earth cannot contain, yet who went down to the depths of hell in order to save us from eternal damnation.  

    That is love.  It is not just the way you look at me; the only one I see; the very, very extraordinary, or even more than anyone that you adore.  It is so valuing the other that no cost is too high to pay for the good of the other.  Love means there’s no mountain high enough, no valley low enough, no river wide enough to keep us from sacrificing ourselves for the good of the beloved.  It goes beyond delight or physical attraction.  Love goes beyond the way another makes us feel, as good as that can be.  Love means doing whatever it takes for the other person’s benefit, with the highest benefit being, of course, eternal salvation.
    When we think about young love, we do think about the strong flames of passion, the silly and extravagant gestures of a couple who cannot help but smile at each other when they come into each other’s presence.  And that is good, and there is a time for that.  But loves proves itself, proves whether it is merely delight and infatuation, when there smiles do not readily come, but tears are shed because of struggle and suffering.  There is a young couple I know who was dating during COVID.  I knew that the young man was moving towards love for the young woman when the young woman contracted COVID, and he chose to be with her so that she would have someone to care for her, and would not be alone, though it meant the possibility of contracting the virus himself and not being able to see his family because he, too, would have to be quarantined.
    Love is staying up long nights to help a spouse study for an important exam, even though one has to be at work the next morning at 6 a.m.  Love is the mother who holds out her hand to catch the vomit from a sick child.  Love is working at a job that is neither exciting nor fulfilling, but knowing that the work will provide a roof, food, and clothing for the family.  I think grandparents are often beautiful examples of love, because, in many cases, the fires that we identify with young love, are not as strong, and yet the heat of that love is kept in white-hot coals.  Have you ever noticed how a couple who has been married for a long time can just sit with each other, perhaps holding hands, and simply delight in each other’s presence?  That kind of love is the result of each spouse knowing that he or she has sacrificed over the years for the good of the other, and the appreciation of the other for that sacrifice.  
    As we prepare to enter into Lent, we recall, once more, the love that God had for us, the love that emptied itself first by becoming man, and then by sacrificing that Incarnation on the altar of the cross so that, by His immolation, we would gain wholeness; by His Death we would gain life.  May God open our eyes to see clearly the great gift we were given in our Lord’s Passion and Death, so that we may also merit to be with the Beloved of our souls in the kingdom of heaven, where God is all in all: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.