| Psalm 71:1-17 Jeremiah 1:4-10 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:4 Luke 4:21-32 |
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your mind on the higher gifts. And now I am going to put before you the best
way of all. Though I command languages both human and angelic—if I speak
without love, I am no more than a gong booming or a cymbal clashing. And
though I have the power of prophecy, to penetrate all mysteries and
knowledge, and though I have all the faith necessary to move mountains—if I
am without love, I am nothing. Though I should give away to the poor all
that I possess, and even give up my body to be burned—if I am without love,
it will do me no good whatever. Love is always patient and kind; love is
never jealous; love is not boastful or conceited…(1 Cor 12:31-13:4 NJB) |
Meditation for the 4th Sunday After the Epiphany ecently
a very dear friend of mine and I went out to breakfast. We hadn’t seen each
other for some months, and we spent quite a bit of time catching up on
things. But then we started talking about bits of history that have gone
into bringing us to where we each are today and even though we’ve known each
other for more than ten years we each discovered something new about the
other that we had no clue about before. We know each other too well and care
about one another too deeply to worry about offending each other with mere
words, so we can afford to talk pretty bluntly and from the heart.During our conversation, she asked me if I knew why she was so turned off by Catholicism. I said, “No, I really had no idea.” Here’s the story she related to me, and I hope I re-tell it OK. When she was younger, she was invited to go to Church with a friend of hers; a Catholic friend. She didn’t know the rules. She didn’t know she wasn’t supposed to abstain from partaking. She watched everyone else go to receive Communion. She thought she should too. She did what she thought was expected. The thing is, when she got back to the pew there was someone in the pew behind her who decided that it was time to make this a teaching moment; which might have been alright had it been handled responsibly, sensibly and with a bit of common sense. However, the person who decided to say something chose instead to yell at my friend. The way the story was related to me I could hear the shame that person had tried to instill during the verbal assault about her participation in the great Sacrament of Love. All I could say was, “I am so very sorry. I apologize for that woman.” Thinking about that story in the context of today’s Epistle just made me want to cringe. Yes, that woman who shrieked at my friend, “You’re not Catholic! I know you’re not Catholic! You’re not supposed to receive” was correct in her theology. But, by publicly humiliating her she probably turned her against Catholicism for life and definitely epitomized, became the very poster child of a booming gong and a clashing cymbal. Something that made so much noise and such harsh noise that Christ’s simple message of redemptive love cannot be heard or discerned over and above the din. At Capernaum, we are told in today’s Gospel, that Jesus’ “teaching made a deep impression on them because his word carried authority”. Jesus hasn’t changed. Nor have his words. Those words still carry authority. Or they would, if the people, if the world, could actually hear those words. All too often I fear we make so much noise of our own that it is not Jesus who is being made manifest, made known, but only ourselves, and our own narcissistic need for attention. And if we are making so much noise that we drown out voice, His words lose all of their power to heal, to restore, and to redeem, for as St. Paul tells us, “faith comes by hearing…” It is not enough to be theologically pure. It is not enough to be so filled with faith as to be the instigator of miracles and cures beyond measure. It is not enough to be all wise or even to have an excess of works of charity. St Paul tells us in today’s Epistle that love, real, honest to God, honest to one another, love, is what we should desire above all else, and what we need. Without it, we are nothing, but a bunch of noisemakers; useful for calling attention to ourselves but not much else.
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