22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle C
St. Mark Church, Fallston
August 29, 2010
Humility, an Enlightened Perspective
By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato
TURKS AND MUSLIMS
Two years ago this month, it was August 2008; I traveled east to the country of Turkey.
Pope Benedict had declared that as “The Year of Saint Paul.” It was the 2,000th anniversary of Paul’s birth.
So, I, and a priest friend, decided to do something special for our vacation. We signed up for a Pilgrimage in the Footsteps of St. Paul to Turkey. It would take us to the sites of the Seven Churches of the Book of Revelation, places where Saint Paul had established early Christian communities.
I have to admit that from the outset I had some anxiety. I knew that Turkey is more of an Eastern Country while it is located in both Europe and the Middle East.
I did not speak Turkish and the people of Turkey are 98% Muslim, so I felt a bit anxious about our safety.
I am so glad that I went. Besides feeling very enriched by visiting many historical and sacred sites, I also came away with a far different feeling about Muslims.
I found them to be respectful and courteous. We visited many mosques and observed them at prayer.
Our Guide was a Muslim Turk named Izzet. He was a refined and educated gentleman.
I remember very clearly the day he took us to Ephesus to visit the house where tradition says that Mary lived her last years, died, and was assumed into heaven. I was very touched when this Muslim guide, Izzet, reverently spoke of “Mother Mary” – “Mother Mary,” a lovely term I had never heard before.
I also remember spending a weekend of rest – and we needed the rest because this was an arduous tour – at the beautiful resort town of Antalya located right on the Mediterranean. I was swimming and in line for the water slide.
I noticed a man starring at me and at first I wondered why. Then I realized that I clearly looked western from my features and the color of my skin.
And beyond that, I had a chain around my neck with a cross on it. So I was clearly a Christian.
I remember how well treated I was by this fellow. He motioned for me to go before him on the water slide with the same solicitude he would pay another Turk or Muslim.
HUMILITY
Why do I share this experience with you today? I share it because the heartfelt experience is really about the virtue of humility.
Throughout the Gospels, Jesus calls us not to see others with abstract labels, with preconceived mental constructs, prejudices, or popular stereotypes. Those are all fabrications within my mind.
In contrast, Jesus calls us not to think ourselves as above or beyond or higher than others. This is the lesson of today’s Gospel.
Jesus does call us to see others – indeed all persons – with our hearts and with the same heart that God has for us.
The humility of the Gospel then is:
1. Our heartfelt awareness that each of us is dependent upon God (heart not head knowledge.)
2. Our experience that all the blessings we have really come from God’s love for us and not from our own merit. And with this enlightened awareness, our response is to try and return that love to those around us (again, heart knowledge not head knowledge.)
3. Gospel humility is the awareness that every human being shares with me the same dignity of being made in the image and likeness of God. It is awareness of my dependence on God and of my oneness with all God’s children on this earth (and I feel it here – in my heart – not just here – in my head.)
A NEW PERSPECTIVE
This Gospel humility certainly demands a new perspective, a new vision for seeing ourselves and others, and our relationship with God.
Furthermore, this Gospel humility:
1. Goes against our cultural individualism – our unchecked and excessive assertion of ourselves as individuals
2. It goes against our cultural holding of ourselves as higher, above, or better than someone else. This humility is challenging because it calls us to let go of this point of view, but, remember, this point of view is at the very core of who Jesus is and what he calls us to be as persons of faith
3. And oddly enough, I believe it is also at the core of being both patriotic and a good citizen of the world in this 21st century, because only this way will give us the hope for true peace.
So, in conclusion, humility – the virtue Jesus lifts up for us today.
A humility that comes from a heart that knows and loves the Lord first and through that love is empowered to love others!
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
Weekly HOMILY for August 22, 2010: Love and Suffering: The “Narrow Gates” of Our Lives
21st Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle C
St. Mark Church, Fallston
August 22, 2010
Love and Suffering: The “Narrow Gates” of Our Lives
By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato
Mugged into Reality
A psychiatrist tells of a patient who was a widow and could not get over her husband’s death. She wept and grieved and refused to be comforted.
The psychiatrist could not understand why this woman was finding it so difficult to move beyond her grief.
One day the woman was mugged and her purse with $300 stolen.
To the utter surprise of the psychiatrist, the terrible incident helped the woman come to terms with the loss of her husband.
She came to understand that she had a loving marriage for most of her years – healthy, happily, and financially secure. That was why her husband’s death was so “unacceptable” to her.
Things like that she thought only happened to other people.
You could say that the mugging had robbed her not only of her cash, but of her illusion that she was immune to misfortune and that bad things happen only to others, to those who somehow “deserve” it.
The mugging forced her to realize that she was more like others than she wanted to believe. This widow finally made her way through the “narrow gate” the Gospel speaks of this morning.
The Gospel’s “Narrow Gate”
Jesus is trying to help us understand that life – this widow’s, yours and mine – are a series of difficult passages, “narrow gates” we struggle through – and there is no easy way to pass through them.
The “narrow gate” is:
1. The honest confrontation of who we are
2. The realization of our littleness before God
3. The understanding that we are nothing more nor less than brothers and sisters to every other human being.
From these descriptors, the “narrow gate” to God is difficult to enter because it is the way of limitless love and sacrificial selflessness. It can only be entered by letting go of our fears, our control, our pride, and our self-absorption. No easy task!
Yet, Jesus promises that anyone willing to struggle through the “narrow gate” will be welcomed into intimate communion with him and his Father.
Love and Suffering
In case you haven’t realized it yet, love and suffering are the narrow gates to the divine.
They are so, because only those two experiences are strong enough to break down our self-centered selfishness and open us up to the Mystery that is God in our midst.
LOVE AND SUFFERING are part of all human lives and they are the primary spiritual teachers, more important than any bible, church, priest, sacrament or sage.
LOVE AND SUFFERING are the main portals that open up the mind space and the heart space, breaking us into breadth and depth and communion.
RE LOVE: You must at one point in your life “love with your whole heart, your whole soul, your whole mind, and your whole strength” (Mark 12:30) or it will not be love at all. That’s how love works and why it leads to the giving up of control.
RE SUFFERING: When you are inside of great suffering, you have a much stronger possibility of surrendering your controls and because you do not have much choice, now God himself can lead you.
Great love and great suffering make you willing to risk everything, holding nothing back.
Conclusion
It should come as no surprise that the Christian icon of redemption is a man offering love from a crucified position of great suffering!
Love and suffering were portals to Jesus’ union with the Father. They are no less portals to our union with Jesus in the very moment.
What great suffering, what great love right now is nudging you into reality and deeper life in God?
21st Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle C
St. Mark Church, Fallston
August 22, 2010
Love and Suffering: The “Narrow Gates” of Our Lives
By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato
Mugged into Reality
A psychiatrist tells of a patient who was a widow and could not get over her husband’s death. She wept and grieved and refused to be comforted.
The psychiatrist could not understand why this woman was finding it so difficult to move beyond her grief.
One day the woman was mugged and her purse with $300 stolen.
To the utter surprise of the psychiatrist, the terrible incident helped the woman come to terms with the loss of her husband.
She came to understand that she had a loving marriage for most of her years – healthy, happily, and financially secure. That was why her husband’s death was so “unacceptable” to her.
Things like that she thought only happened to other people.
You could say that the mugging had robbed her not only of her cash, but of her illusion that she was immune to misfortune and that bad things happen only to others, to those who somehow “deserve” it.
The mugging forced her to realize that she was more like others than she wanted to believe. This widow finally made her way through the “narrow gate” the Gospel speaks of this morning.
The Gospel’s “Narrow Gate”
Jesus is trying to help us understand that life – this widow’s, yours and mine – are a series of difficult passages, “narrow gates” we struggle through – and there is no easy way to pass through them.
The “narrow gate” is:
1. The honest confrontation of who we are
2. The realization of our littleness before God
3. The understanding that we are nothing more nor less than brothers and sisters to every other human being.
From these descriptors, the “narrow gate” to God is difficult to enter because it is the way of limitless love and sacrificial selflessness. It can only be entered by letting go of our fears, our control, our pride, and our self-absorption. No easy task!
Yet, Jesus promises that anyone willing to struggle through the “narrow gate” will be welcomed into intimate communion with him and his Father.
Love and Suffering
In case you haven’t realized it yet, love and suffering are the narrow gates to the divine.
They are so, because only those two experiences are strong enough to break down our self-centered selfishness and open us up to the Mystery that is God in our midst.
LOVE AND SUFFERING are part of all human lives and they are the primary spiritual teachers, more important than any bible, church, priest, sacrament or sage.
LOVE AND SUFFERING are the main portals that open up the mind space and the heart space, breaking us into breadth and depth and communion.
RE LOVE: You must at one point in your life “love with your whole heart, your whole soul, your whole mind, and your whole strength” (Mark 12:30) or it will not be love at all. That’s how love works and why it leads to the giving up of control.
RE SUFFERING: When you are inside of great suffering, you have a much stronger possibility of surrendering your controls and because you do not have much choice, now God himself can lead you.
Great love and great suffering make you willing to risk everything, holding nothing back.
Conclusion
It should come as no surprise that the Christian icon of redemption is a man offering love from a crucified position of great suffering!
Love and suffering were portals to Jesus’ union with the Father. They are no less portals to our union with Jesus in the very moment.
What great suffering, what great love right now is nudging you into reality and deeper life in God?
St. Mark Church, Fallston
August 22, 2010
Love and Suffering: The “Narrow Gates” of Our Lives
By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato
Mugged into Reality
A psychiatrist tells of a patient who was a widow and could not get over her husband’s death. She wept and grieved and refused to be comforted.
The psychiatrist could not understand why this woman was finding it so difficult to move beyond her grief.
One day the woman was mugged and her purse with $300 stolen.
To the utter surprise of the psychiatrist, the terrible incident helped the woman come to terms with the loss of her husband.
She came to understand that she had a loving marriage for most of her years – healthy, happily, and financially secure. That was why her husband’s death was so “unacceptable” to her.
Things like that she thought only happened to other people.
You could say that the mugging had robbed her not only of her cash, but of her illusion that she was immune to misfortune and that bad things happen only to others, to those who somehow “deserve” it.
The mugging forced her to realize that she was more like others than she wanted to believe. This widow finally made her way through the “narrow gate” the Gospel speaks of this morning.
The Gospel’s “Narrow Gate”
Jesus is trying to help us understand that life – this widow’s, yours and mine – are a series of difficult passages, “narrow gates” we struggle through – and there is no easy way to pass through them.
The “narrow gate” is:
1. The honest confrontation of who we are
2. The realization of our littleness before God
3. The understanding that we are nothing more nor less than brothers and sisters to every other human being.
From these descriptors, the “narrow gate” to God is difficult to enter because it is the way of limitless love and sacrificial selflessness. It can only be entered by letting go of our fears, our control, our pride, and our self-absorption. No easy task!
Yet, Jesus promises that anyone willing to struggle through the “narrow gate” will be welcomed into intimate communion with him and his Father.
Love and Suffering
In case you haven’t realized it yet, love and suffering are the narrow gates to the divine.
They are so, because only those two experiences are strong enough to break down our self-centered selfishness and open us up to the Mystery that is God in our midst.
LOVE AND SUFFERING are part of all human lives and they are the primary spiritual teachers, more important than any bible, church, priest, sacrament or sage.
LOVE AND SUFFERING are the main portals that open up the mind space and the heart space, breaking us into breadth and depth and communion.
RE LOVE: You must at one point in your life “love with your whole heart, your whole soul, your whole mind, and your whole strength” (Mark 12:30) or it will not be love at all. That’s how love works and why it leads to the giving up of control.
RE SUFFERING: When you are inside of great suffering, you have a much stronger possibility of surrendering your controls and because you do not have much choice, now God himself can lead you.
Great love and great suffering make you willing to risk everything, holding nothing back.
Conclusion
It should come as no surprise that the Christian icon of redemption is a man offering love from a crucified position of great suffering!
Love and suffering were portals to Jesus’ union with the Father. They are no less portals to our union with Jesus in the very moment.
What great suffering, what great love right now is nudging you into reality and deeper life in God?
21st Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle C
St. Mark Church, Fallston
August 22, 2010
Love and Suffering: The “Narrow Gates” of Our Lives
By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato
Mugged into Reality
A psychiatrist tells of a patient who was a widow and could not get over her husband’s death. She wept and grieved and refused to be comforted.
The psychiatrist could not understand why this woman was finding it so difficult to move beyond her grief.
One day the woman was mugged and her purse with $300 stolen.
To the utter surprise of the psychiatrist, the terrible incident helped the woman come to terms with the loss of her husband.
She came to understand that she had a loving marriage for most of her years – healthy, happily, and financially secure. That was why her husband’s death was so “unacceptable” to her.
Things like that she thought only happened to other people.
You could say that the mugging had robbed her not only of her cash, but of her illusion that she was immune to misfortune and that bad things happen only to others, to those who somehow “deserve” it.
The mugging forced her to realize that she was more like others than she wanted to believe. This widow finally made her way through the “narrow gate” the Gospel speaks of this morning.
The Gospel’s “Narrow Gate”
Jesus is trying to help us understand that life – this widow’s, yours and mine – are a series of difficult passages, “narrow gates” we struggle through – and there is no easy way to pass through them.
The “narrow gate” is:
1. The honest confrontation of who we are
2. The realization of our littleness before God
3. The understanding that we are nothing more nor less than brothers and sisters to every other human being.
From these descriptors, the “narrow gate” to God is difficult to enter because it is the way of limitless love and sacrificial selflessness. It can only be entered by letting go of our fears, our control, our pride, and our self-absorption. No easy task!
Yet, Jesus promises that anyone willing to struggle through the “narrow gate” will be welcomed into intimate communion with him and his Father.
Love and Suffering
In case you haven’t realized it yet, love and suffering are the narrow gates to the divine.
They are so, because only those two experiences are strong enough to break down our self-centered selfishness and open us up to the Mystery that is God in our midst.
LOVE AND SUFFERING are part of all human lives and they are the primary spiritual teachers, more important than any bible, church, priest, sacrament or sage.
LOVE AND SUFFERING are the main portals that open up the mind space and the heart space, breaking us into breadth and depth and communion.
RE LOVE: You must at one point in your life “love with your whole heart, your whole soul, your whole mind, and your whole strength” (Mark 12:30) or it will not be love at all. That’s how love works and why it leads to the giving up of control.
RE SUFFERING: When you are inside of great suffering, you have a much stronger possibility of surrendering your controls and because you do not have much choice, now God himself can lead you.
Great love and great suffering make you willing to risk everything, holding nothing back.
Conclusion
It should come as no surprise that the Christian icon of redemption is a man offering love from a crucified position of great suffering!
Love and suffering were portals to Jesus’ union with the Father. They are no less portals to our union with Jesus in the very moment.
What great suffering, what great love right now is nudging you into reality and deeper life in God?
Sunday, August 08, 2010
Weekly HOMILY for August 8, 2010:
19th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle C
St. Patrick Church, Cumberland
August 8, 2010
That’s Real Faith
By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato
“Now that’s faith”
One day one of our Catholic Sisters was driving to the home of a person who was sick.
This Sister was a nurse and doing this home healthy visit on behalf of the hospital where she worked. She was driving through the streets of the town and lo and behold, her car ran out of gas.
Fortunately, there was a gas station just one block away. Unfortunately, the station had no gas can to lend the Sister and she did not have one either.
But then Sister got an idea. She had a brand new bedpan in the trunk of her car.
The gas station attendant knew her and trusted her and let her fill the bedpan with gasoline. Sister carefully carried it back to the car and started pouring the gasoline into the tank.
As she was doing this, a car slowed down to a stop and the driver was just staring at the Sister pouring from the bedpan into the gas tank. He called out through the passenger window, “Now that’s what I call real faith.”
Abraham’s Faith and Life
That theme of faith emerges for us today.
Our second reading extols the faith of Abraham. This ancient, Old Testament patriarch was probably illiterate, but he believed firmly in God.
God called him to leave the only land that he knew and journey to a foreign country. Abraham, because of his faith, did just that.
God promised Abraham that he and Sarah, in spite of being older, would have a son. Abraham, with his faith, rejoiced in the birth of Isaac.
God told Abraham that his “descendants would be as numerous as the stars of the sky and the sands on the seashore.” Abraham had faith and so it happened.
Abraham basically had only one article of faith – he believed in God and trusted in God’s power. That one article of faith dominated his life and determined what he did.
We have many articles of faith – the basics contained in our Creed or Profession of Faith. Like Abraham, we are to allow them to dominate our lives and determine how we live.
Our Faith and Life
For example, to believe in a Creator is to believe in a livable universe that supports us rather than fights us. To believe in the Father is to know that God cares and that we have a home to go to.
To believe that God became human is to know that the unbridgeable chasm between God and us has been spanned. It is to know that God and we can walk life together and can actually love one another.
To believe that the Son of God suffered and died is to believe that absolutely nothing in life can overwhelm us. It is to believe that it has already been overcome by our Brother Jesus.
To believe that Jesus rose from the dead is to understand that nothing in life is futile. It is to know that everything we do has value and great potential for good.
To believe in the Holy Spirit is to understand that God lives within each of us and forms our deepest identity. To believe in the sacraments is to understand that God comes to us right now through ordinary things like bread and wine.
To believe in the church is to understand that God has formed us as a people, a family, a community. It is to know that we are to figure out a way to love one another regardless of religious or racial or ethnic or cultural or national differences.
To believe in the communion of saints is to understand that our community of life in the Lord is so strong that it continues even beyond physical death. And to believe in the forgiveness of sins is to understand that no mistake we make is fatal in God’s eyes and no hurt between us is so big that reconciliation is impossible.
Conclusion
They are our basic articles of faith.
We are to approach as Abraham did his one article of faith centuries ago. They can have a profound, positive impact on our lives if we allow them to do that.
St. Patrick Church, Cumberland
August 8, 2010
That’s Real Faith
By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato
“Now that’s faith”
One day one of our Catholic Sisters was driving to the home of a person who was sick.
This Sister was a nurse and doing this home healthy visit on behalf of the hospital where she worked. She was driving through the streets of the town and lo and behold, her car ran out of gas.
Fortunately, there was a gas station just one block away. Unfortunately, the station had no gas can to lend the Sister and she did not have one either.
But then Sister got an idea. She had a brand new bedpan in the trunk of her car.
The gas station attendant knew her and trusted her and let her fill the bedpan with gasoline. Sister carefully carried it back to the car and started pouring the gasoline into the tank.
As she was doing this, a car slowed down to a stop and the driver was just staring at the Sister pouring from the bedpan into the gas tank. He called out through the passenger window, “Now that’s what I call real faith.”
Abraham’s Faith and Life
That theme of faith emerges for us today.
Our second reading extols the faith of Abraham. This ancient, Old Testament patriarch was probably illiterate, but he believed firmly in God.
God called him to leave the only land that he knew and journey to a foreign country. Abraham, because of his faith, did just that.
God promised Abraham that he and Sarah, in spite of being older, would have a son. Abraham, with his faith, rejoiced in the birth of Isaac.
God told Abraham that his “descendants would be as numerous as the stars of the sky and the sands on the seashore.” Abraham had faith and so it happened.
Abraham basically had only one article of faith – he believed in God and trusted in God’s power. That one article of faith dominated his life and determined what he did.
We have many articles of faith – the basics contained in our Creed or Profession of Faith. Like Abraham, we are to allow them to dominate our lives and determine how we live.
Our Faith and Life
For example, to believe in a Creator is to believe in a livable universe that supports us rather than fights us. To believe in the Father is to know that God cares and that we have a home to go to.
To believe that God became human is to know that the unbridgeable chasm between God and us has been spanned. It is to know that God and we can walk life together and can actually love one another.
To believe that the Son of God suffered and died is to believe that absolutely nothing in life can overwhelm us. It is to believe that it has already been overcome by our Brother Jesus.
To believe that Jesus rose from the dead is to understand that nothing in life is futile. It is to know that everything we do has value and great potential for good.
To believe in the Holy Spirit is to understand that God lives within each of us and forms our deepest identity. To believe in the sacraments is to understand that God comes to us right now through ordinary things like bread and wine.
To believe in the church is to understand that God has formed us as a people, a family, a community. It is to know that we are to figure out a way to love one another regardless of religious or racial or ethnic or cultural or national differences.
To believe in the communion of saints is to understand that our community of life in the Lord is so strong that it continues even beyond physical death. And to believe in the forgiveness of sins is to understand that no mistake we make is fatal in God’s eyes and no hurt between us is so big that reconciliation is impossible.
Conclusion
They are our basic articles of faith.
We are to approach as Abraham did his one article of faith centuries ago. They can have a profound, positive impact on our lives if we allow them to do that.
Saturday, August 07, 2010
MARRIAGE Service: Love's Three Levels
Marriage of Seth and Jewel Barnard
(1 Corinthians 12:31-13:8a)
St. Patrick Church
August 7, 2010
Love’s Three Levels
By Nicholas P. Amato
Fiddler on the Roof
In the famous Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye, the father of a Jewish family living in Russia was certainly not the first man ever to ask a woman, “Do you love me?”
Nor was Golde, his wife, the first ever to respond, “Do I love you? For all these years, I’ve cleaned your house, cooked your meals, and washed your clothes. Do I love you?”
You’ll recall it’s not the response Tevye is looking for, “No, no Golde, I mean do you LOVE me?”
Golde replies with still more of the “laundry list.” “For all these years, I’ve walked with you, talked with you, starved with you, slept with you. Do I love you? If that’s not love, what is?”
We’ve all been there when we really want to know higher levels to this question of being loved.
Love Has Its Levels
That question of higher levels has a fitting place here at the marriage of Seth and Jewel and the reading from Paul's Letter to the Corinthians, which they’ve chosen, helps us address it.
Let’s look at this deeper love Tevye and Paul are raising.
I’d suggest there are three levels of love, and that the first prepares you for the second, and the second prepares you for the third.
Foundational Level
The first level of love is FOUNDATIONAL LOVE. It’s the kind of love Golde talks about with Tevye.
Simply put, the first level of love consists in mutual sharing and fidelity. The mutual sharing and fidelity is the very bedrock of love. Without it, there can be no genuine love.
It’s St. Paul’s “Love is patient, love is kind, not envious, it does not boast.”
And it’s only from working at these tasks of patience and kindness that we get drawn into love expressions that are truly higher.
Joy-Filled Level
The second, or higher level of love could be called JOY-FILLED LOVE.
Here, the lover is not content with mutual sharing and mutual fidelity. At this level the lover wants to do more. The lover searches for ways to surprise and to please the beloved.
This is what we mean by it being JOY-FILLED. It is never satisfied with the bare minimum. It always wants to do more.
St. Paul touches this level in his words, “Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.” The truth of the relationship has grown and it needs higher expressions of love to satisfy.
As a spouse no longer rejoices in what is wrong with the other spouse, as two people embrace each other’s shortcomings, as a couple is able in the face of it all to rejoice in the fact that God has joined them together, something begins to happen in the relationship.
Folly of Love Level
The highest level of loving begins. It might be called the FOLLY OF LOVE. It is the most perfect form love there is.
At this level the lover can now do what other people truly consider madness. At this level the lover does what ordinary people cannot understand.
It is important to know that this step into the heights of love cannot be taken without a profound sense of having first been loved by God. For Christians it is an understanding of having been lost and having been found in Christ Jesus.
Without a saving experience of this kind, there is no motivation, no energy, no resource you can depend on for loving at this level of folly for this is the level where I will give up all, including life itself, for another.
That is why the word FOLLY sums it up so well. It is why those who haven’t had the experience can have no understanding of it.
It is the mind of Paul, of a Jesus, all individuals who been there. And Paul’s words are addressed to this highest level of love, “There is no limit to love’s forbearance, to its trust, its hope, its power to endure.
My friends, those words only make sense to one who’s been lost and now is found.
Conclusion
Seth and Jewel, most of us, most of the time, love at the first level and we work at being patient and kind.
And most of us have moments in our lives when we love at the second level, rejoicing in the truth of our relationships with a spouse.
We go out of our way to please or to surprise those we love.
The challenge for you Seth and Jewel, on this day of blessing, is to value and live your love at the third level, feeling no limits to love’s forbearance, its trust, its power to endure.
Doing so you will love in a way that makes non-loving people think you are mad. Yet it’s only this kind of love that is capable of transforming, not only each other, but also ourselves, as well as the world in which we live.
(1 Corinthians 12:31-13:8a)
St. Patrick Church
August 7, 2010
Love’s Three Levels
By Nicholas P. Amato
Fiddler on the Roof
In the famous Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye, the father of a Jewish family living in Russia was certainly not the first man ever to ask a woman, “Do you love me?”
Nor was Golde, his wife, the first ever to respond, “Do I love you? For all these years, I’ve cleaned your house, cooked your meals, and washed your clothes. Do I love you?”
You’ll recall it’s not the response Tevye is looking for, “No, no Golde, I mean do you LOVE me?”
Golde replies with still more of the “laundry list.” “For all these years, I’ve walked with you, talked with you, starved with you, slept with you. Do I love you? If that’s not love, what is?”
We’ve all been there when we really want to know higher levels to this question of being loved.
Love Has Its Levels
That question of higher levels has a fitting place here at the marriage of Seth and Jewel and the reading from Paul's Letter to the Corinthians, which they’ve chosen, helps us address it.
Let’s look at this deeper love Tevye and Paul are raising.
I’d suggest there are three levels of love, and that the first prepares you for the second, and the second prepares you for the third.
Foundational Level
The first level of love is FOUNDATIONAL LOVE. It’s the kind of love Golde talks about with Tevye.
Simply put, the first level of love consists in mutual sharing and fidelity. The mutual sharing and fidelity is the very bedrock of love. Without it, there can be no genuine love.
It’s St. Paul’s “Love is patient, love is kind, not envious, it does not boast.”
And it’s only from working at these tasks of patience and kindness that we get drawn into love expressions that are truly higher.
Joy-Filled Level
The second, or higher level of love could be called JOY-FILLED LOVE.
Here, the lover is not content with mutual sharing and mutual fidelity. At this level the lover wants to do more. The lover searches for ways to surprise and to please the beloved.
This is what we mean by it being JOY-FILLED. It is never satisfied with the bare minimum. It always wants to do more.
St. Paul touches this level in his words, “Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.” The truth of the relationship has grown and it needs higher expressions of love to satisfy.
As a spouse no longer rejoices in what is wrong with the other spouse, as two people embrace each other’s shortcomings, as a couple is able in the face of it all to rejoice in the fact that God has joined them together, something begins to happen in the relationship.
Folly of Love Level
The highest level of loving begins. It might be called the FOLLY OF LOVE. It is the most perfect form love there is.
At this level the lover can now do what other people truly consider madness. At this level the lover does what ordinary people cannot understand.
It is important to know that this step into the heights of love cannot be taken without a profound sense of having first been loved by God. For Christians it is an understanding of having been lost and having been found in Christ Jesus.
Without a saving experience of this kind, there is no motivation, no energy, no resource you can depend on for loving at this level of folly for this is the level where I will give up all, including life itself, for another.
That is why the word FOLLY sums it up so well. It is why those who haven’t had the experience can have no understanding of it.
It is the mind of Paul, of a Jesus, all individuals who been there. And Paul’s words are addressed to this highest level of love, “There is no limit to love’s forbearance, to its trust, its hope, its power to endure.
My friends, those words only make sense to one who’s been lost and now is found.
Conclusion
Seth and Jewel, most of us, most of the time, love at the first level and we work at being patient and kind.
And most of us have moments in our lives when we love at the second level, rejoicing in the truth of our relationships with a spouse.
We go out of our way to please or to surprise those we love.
The challenge for you Seth and Jewel, on this day of blessing, is to value and live your love at the third level, feeling no limits to love’s forbearance, its trust, its power to endure.
Doing so you will love in a way that makes non-loving people think you are mad. Yet it’s only this kind of love that is capable of transforming, not only each other, but also ourselves, as well as the world in which we live.
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