Of Things Divine and Orange

Fr. Bryan Timby

One of the anthems for my generation in the summer of 1968 was “All You Need Is Love” by the Beatles. It was a simple song with a simple message.

The same thought has been expressed through the ages by couples in love when confronted by parents concerned for the welfare of their children trying to make it in the world. “They say our love won’t pay the rent…but I got you, Babe” has had more incarnations that we can count.

Yes, love is a driving force and it causes people to do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do. Even with the wealthy, it is only love that holds things together and brings joy to life.

When I was upgrowing at St. Mary’s Catholic School in Delaware, Ohio, the Franciscan sisters taught us to understand that there are three kinds of love – eros, philios and agape – and each had its own value and place in the Kingdom of God. While Jesus focused on agape and filial love – love of God and love of neighbor – the media today focuses on erotic love so much so that television programs, print advertising, many family films, and the music videos our children watch have lured an entire generation into thinking that sex is the ultimate expression of love, affection and friendship. How things have changed! When I began dating 40 years ago the big dilemma was whether to kiss her on the second, third or fourth date. And the choice I had was the forehead or the cheek. Now, even adolescents as young as sixth grade consider it normal to have sex as a part of a date.

But, when Jesus spoke of loving God above all else and loving neighbor as ourselves He took the notion of love way beyond that of erotic encounters. In fact, what he said was radical, even revolutionary to those who heard him.

Jesus is not the one who invented the Golden Rule. Moses did. But Jesus did make it the summary of the entire Law and of the prophets. The poor Levites, who formed the priestly class in Judaism, saw hundreds of years of study and explanation simplified in such a way as to render useless the 613 laws that are written in the Book of Deuteronomy intended to help people live according to the Ten Commandments. That's how difficult we find it to love God and neighbor. We need 613 rules to tell us how!

Agape (God's love freely received and freely returned) and philios (loving one’s neighbor in a way that allows him a true encounter with the love of God) has been the motivation of every saint that has ever walked this earth.

When we choose to love … Yes, I said “choose” … Love is not a feeling; it is not a place in our lives we fall in and out of … It is an act of the will ... We chose to love … So, when we realize the depths of God’s love for us and we choose to love God in return, we enter into the very depth of God’s selfless love for us and those around us. Such a choice always makes demands of us, and the length to which we go in fulfilling those demands is the barometer of our level commitment to the choice we made to love.

A person truly in love with God conducts himself or herself in such a way that every choice they make has only one purpose - to further fulfill that love ... from choosing to sit in prayer with the One who is loved ... to choosing to be faithful in worship of the One who is loved ... even to choosing what we allow to entertain us.

The choice to love God demands action, and that action is intended to move us toward holiness. Yet along the way we fall. We fail in our fidelity to God. We are not always faithful to the One who loves us. We lie, we cheat, we steal, we look at porn on the Internet, we work so much that our families suffer, we choose movies and television shows that incidiously expose us to new attitudes and values that gradually supplant our sense of morality and convince us that times have changed, life is more complicated now, and we are more free without the demands that the love of God sets before us.

We consider ourselves to be “open-minded.” But, my friends, we would do well to heed the words of a sage whose name escapes me and remember to take care not to open our minds so widely that it allows just anything to drop in because there is a lot of garbage floating around out there that may seem appetizing but is really rancid and can cause spiritual indigestion, even death.

We must worship. We must pray. We must seek the mind of the Body of Christ. Then we must conform ourselves to the Truth revealed by God’s love for us and taught by the Church. Even if it is a question or teaching that poses some difficulty, we conform ourselves because God loves us and we love God. While we know that God loves us even when we are sinning (St. Paul writes where there is sin there grace abounds even more …), we also know that God loves us so much that He wants us turn away from sin because of our love for Him. That is agape love: that God emptied Himself for me, and I will do anything, even give my life, with no motivation other than to love God more perfectly.

To love God above all things especially comes to life in the choices we make our relationships with people, whether they be family, friends, or sthangers. Because we choose to love God, we choose also to love those around us. It doesn’t matter what a person’s personality is like. If we love God, we choose to love each and every person, even the ones we find most bothersome.

Blessed Theresa of Calcutta is a great teacher in how to bring our love of God to life. She chose to live among the poorest of the poor and to hold them in her arms. She loved everyone. It was evident in the way she spoke of love to everyone. It radiated from her wrinkled face and twinkled in her eyes. She lived for the love of God and she found it in her brothers and sisters, especially in the ones society had cast aside.

In the midst of so much disaster along the Gulf Coast in the last two months there has been a great outpouring of charity, another word for love. It is wonderful to see the generosity of people here at Holy Rosary -- we have a new family from Louisiana moving into a house on Ivy this very morning -- and to know that members of our Men’s Club actually went down to Biloxi to help clean-up the mess. But, regardless of how many of millions have been donated in cash, food, housing, clothing and personal service, they mean nothing to a Christian unless they are done out of love for God. Without the love God, acts of charity are simply humanitarian deeds that do nothing but make us feel good about ourselves, give us warm fuzzies. True philios requires agape. True love of neighbor requires the love of God. It is a selfless act to love another for no other reason that God has loved you first.

Some people find it difficult to love a God they cannot see. But, all anyone needs to do, according to Mother Theresa, is adjust their sights from the invisible to the faces of the people on the street. It is in those faces that we encounter Jesus face-to-face. It is in the way that we love them that we are held close to the bosom of the God who has and will always love us.

St. Augustine of Hippo, my hero-saint, once said, "The love of God is the first in the order of precepts; the love of neighbor is the first in the order of practice."

Practice in loving our neighbor begins right after Mass as we jockey for the fastest moving line out of the parking lot and scatter to the four winds to take the Good News to the homebound, the person suffering from AIDS, the abused women in a safe house, to the sick, to our neighbors, to our family members who are hurting.

Believe me, there is no love lost in any love given away so freely.

Looking back, I guess the song was right after all, “…love is all you need…love is all you need…love is all you need…all you need is love.”