THE FULFILLING OF THE LAW

A SERMON FOR THE 24th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Those of you who attended Mass both last Sunday, which was the Feast of Christ the King, and then again on Thursday, which was All Saints, will have noticed that the two sermons were really just two installments of the same story.  On Christ the King, we learned how the devil seeks to entice us into sin by giving us only one law, which is that we should always do what we want.  On All Saints Day, we learned the full truth of Satan’s incomplete and fallacious law.  We learned that we must first love God, and only then are we free to do what we really want, which after all, if we love God, would be to want only the things that are in accord with the divine will, in other words, nothing sinful.

By either pure coincidence or divine Providence, our readings this Sunday act as a conclusion to this series of sermons.  We began by establishing what is the true first commandment of God, to love him first and foremost.  The Epistle today extends that first of all commandments by reminding us that the second greatest commandment is to love our neighbor as ourselves.  All the other commandments that pertain to our neighbor (thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill, steal, bear false witness, and so on) can be reduced to this single commandment “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Loving our neighbor is something we all try to do, I hope.  Of course, it’s not always that easy, as so many of our neighbors are not that lovable.  But we must remember that love is not just a silly feeling, but a theological virtue. In fact, it is the highest of all the virtues, and the only one that will continue to be practised even in heaven. There, we will not need the other virtues:  faith will be replaced by the beatific vision—we don’t need faith to believe what we can see; hope will be fulfilled, and there will be nothing left to hope for. But love, that’s something we will do for all eternity.

And what, in heaven, will be the object of our love?  The same as here.  God and our neighbor.  The only difference is that in heaven we will all be perfectly united together with each other and together, with God.  All faults and imperfections will have been purged from our neighbors, and so then maybe they won’t be so difficult to love!  We will all be as one, forming together the Mystical Body of Christ, united forever with the Godhead.

This unity already exists amongst the saints of heaven of course, and we commemorated our fellow-members of the Church on the Feast of All Saints.  It’s no accident that on the very next day, we have the opportunity of putting our love of neighbor to the test by praying and sacrificing for the Holy Souls in Purgatory.  What is more natural than after celebrating our union with the Church Triumphant on All Saints Day, we should immediately descend into the cleansing fires of Purgatory to visit the poor souls who endure their chastisement as members of the Church Suffering.  The union that exists between them and us could not be stronger—they are our departed loved ones, and just as we loved them in this life, there is no essential change in our relationship once they pass from us.  We continue to love them, and they us.  The only difference is that we can show them our love by helping them get through their suffering in Purgatory, while they, alas, are no longer to help themselves.  They rely on us for the comfort of our prayers, and we offer those prayers and other sacrifices, freely and with love, like little drops of cool water in the overwhelming heat of their torments.

Today, St. Paul draws us back to this side of the veil, where we who dwell together in the Church Militant must continue our difficult struggle to love our fellow man. He reminds us that we must love our neighbor with the selfsame virtue of charity, as we do God, his saints and the Holy Souls of Purgatory.  And really, when you think about it, it’s no less difficult, and no less easy either. For love is always measured by the willingness we have to sacrifice for the one loved.  The more we love, the easier it is to curtail our own will for the benefit of that person.  

The real test is loving the people we don’t like.  It’s not a contradiction, according to our Lord.  It’s a simple act of forgiveness, made with our intellect and exercised by our will.   It’s not a silly emotion, whereby we “feel” we have to hate and wish terrible things on people we don’t like.  Christ’s teachings are diametrically opposed to this approach, and if we find ourselves falling into that trap, it is for us to alter our own disposition rather than question the ways of our blessed Lord.  Forgiveness is a big thing with God!  Don’t forget, if we love God and then do what we want, then surely we’ll want to love our neighbor no matter how he treats us.  “Love” our neighbor, not “like” our neighbor necessarily.  We must force ourselves if necessary to wish salvation and not damnation upon those we dislike the most.

We can have no better example placed before us than our blessed Lord himself. Observe his actions on the ship in today’s Gospel.  He allows his sleep to be disturbed so that he may calm the troubled waters and bring peace to his panic-stricken apostles.  If enough of us follow his example, perhaps we too may restore peace to this stormy world, replacing the ever-spiraling hatred with Christian love and a true unity in God.