Sunday, October 29, 2023

THIRTIETH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, October 29, 2023

(Exodus 22:20-26; I Thessalonians 1:5-10; Matthew 22:34-40)

The gospel today is about love. Everyone thinks they know about love, but not everyone agrees on what love is. Once a homeless man received lunch from a volunteer working in a soup kitchen. The homeless man said to the volunteer, “Miss Bea, I love you.” She responded, “I love you too, Jimmy.” Then the man said, “Miss Bea, if you love me, will you sleep with me?” The woman replied: “It's not that kind of love.”

There are several types of love. The great exponent of the faith of the last century, C.S. Lewis, describes four. Reflecting on these can help us better understand the two commandments of today’s gospel. Three of these types are natural. That is, they arise in us like the appetite to eat or the desire to know. The fourth type is supernatural. In other words, it comes from God although it is up to us to accept it and share it with others.

The first type of love is affection whereby we wish well for the people who help us. Out of affection, a girl loves her mother who provides her with the resources to live, from breastfeeding to advice in attending parties. Mothers also need the affection of their children to feel fulfilled as women. We need to be needed, as the saying goes. Affection extends beyond our families. Lewis says that ninety percent of our love relationships are of this type. However, we take care with affection because it can turn into overindulgence that suffocates rather than supports development.

Lewis lists friendship as the second type of love. He has in mind complete sharing so that two men or two women identify with each other. Church fathers St. Basil and St. Gregory of Nazianzus had such a relationship. Gregory wrote: “When we recognized our friendship, we became everything for each other: we shared the same accommodation, the same table, the same desires, the same goal.” In the Gospel according to Saint John at the Last Supper Jesus calls his disciples “friends” because they have shared his life to the fullest. Although this type of friendship is a great gift, it can be corrupted. For example, when the two do not share with anyone other than each other, it becomes selfish.

Eros, romantic love, comprise the third type of love. Lovers experience delight not only in the presence but also the thought of the other. By its nature, eros will lead the couple to give life in marriage. But it can also lead to a decrease in goodness, as when lovers abandon virtue in the pursuit of erotic pleasure.

Lewis calls the fourth type of love “agape,” a Greek word meaning self-sacrificing love. It is the love of God given to humans out of pure goodness. By nature we have to love the teachers who formed us as people of character. But God does not have to love us; He did not even have to create us. Despite millennia of human ingratitude, God not only created us but sent His Son to save us from sin and death. In response to Him we love everyone with a love that does not seek reciprocity in affection, nor exclusivity in friendship, nor pleasure in eros.

With agape we can love the invisible God. This is more difficult than one suspects.  We cannot see God, and many people like to think of themselves as authors of true love.  We love God by helping the hungry, the naked, the sick, and foreigners with whom Christ identified. We also love God by obeying His commandments even when it demands sacrifice. Finally, we love God by praying to Him daily and attentively.

As followers of Christ, we do not love only those who meet our needs. We love everyone in imitation of God who has filled us with his love. This love, agape, gives us more than satisfaction that is prone to fade. It gives us the joy of knowing Jesus as our friend and his Father as our host for eternity.