(Sixth Sunday of Easter (B): This homily was given on May
6, 2018 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read Acts 10: 25-48; Psalm 98: 1-4; 1 John 4:
7-10; John 15: 9-17.)
[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Sixth Sunday of Easter 2018]
In modern-day America, love
and approval are synonyms. They basically mean the same thing. Now please don’t misunderstand me here; I’m
not saying that love and approval actually are
synonyms. What I’m saying is that
they’ve become synonymous in the minds of many Americans today (maybe even the
majority)—although most of them are probably not aware of it.
Jesus talks about love—real, genuine love—in today’s
gospel. St. John does the same thing in
today’s second reading. To love another human
being is “to desire the good” for that person, and then to do what you can to
help the person attain that good in
his or her life. Which explains why
Jesus Christ came to this earth 2,000 years ago and died on the cross! It was out of this kind of love: “Greater
love than this no one has, than to lay down his life for his friends.” Jesus Christ loved us and so he wanted us to
experience the greatest “good” that we could possibly experience as human
beings, namely heaven! But he also knew
that we couldn’t merit and attain that eternal life on our own. So he did what only a God-man could do. He made the ultimate sacrifice of love, so
that through his eternal merits we
could attain the ultimate good:
unending life in his kingdom.
St. John summarizes it perfectly in today’s second reading
when he says, “God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life
through him. In this is love: not that
we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our
sins.”
God loves every human person, and he demonstrated that fact
by sending his Son to die for us all. But
at the same time God does not APPROVE of everything that we do in our lives. That’s because we’re all sinners who commit
sins every day. (I hope this is not a
revelation to anyone; it certainly shouldn’t be.) He approves of some of the things we do, for
sure: acts of kindness, mercy, forgiveness, etc. But not everything. This is clear from today’s gospel reading when
Jesus says, “IF you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love.” Well, if that statement is true (and we know
it is, since Jesus said it!), then so is the opposite true: “If you DON’T keep
my commandments, you will NOT remain in my love.”
Obviously Jesus does not approve of sin—ours or anyone
else’s.
Nor are we supposed to approve of sin! That message comes through in the very next
paragraph of the text when Jesus says, “Love one another as I love you.” Jesus loves us—he
desires the good (the best!) for us—but he does not say “Amen” either to the
sins that we commit in our lives or the sins that others commit in their lives.
And neither should we—if we want to love as he loved.
Does this make sense to you?
It should.
But if it does, I hope you understand something. I hope you understand that YOU ARE IN THE
MINORITY RIGHT NOW IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA—AND IN MUCH OF THE WESTERN,
INDUSTRIALIZED, TECHNOLOGICALLY-DRIVEN WORLD!
As I said at the beginning of my homily, in the minds of
all-too-many Americans today love and
approval are synonyms. That means if you say you love somebody, you MUST
approve of EVERYTHING they do! That
includes the sins they commit in their lives.
And it you don’t believe me, just read the newspaper or
watch the evening news.
In 21st century America, if you don’t approve of
abortion, for example, then many people will say that you hate women. That’s why a lot good pro-life organizations
have been labeled “hate groups”. If you
don’t approve of homosexual activity, then you hate homosexuals. If you support securing the border with
Mexico and don’t approve of illegal immigration, then you hate immigrants. If you don’t approve of people mutilating
themselves and taking potentially harmful drugs in order to deal with their
gender dysphoria, then you hate transgendered people.
If you don’t approve of certain sins—certain
socially-acceptable sins—you are immediately called “a hater” in 2018. Now that’s an illogical position to hold—hatred
does NOT necessarily follow from disapproval—but an awful lot of people have
bought into the lie that it does. And
many of those who’ve bought into the lie are teaching your children and
grandchildren in schools and universities all over this country.
This really hit home with me one day a couple of years ago
when a college student came to see me at the rectory. (I mentioned this incident in a homily I gave
at the time. Some of you may remember
it.)
This young man came to see me because he was struggling
with his faith. He said to me, “Fr. Ray,
I’m not sure I want to be Catholic anymore.”
I said, “Why not?”
“Well,” he said, “my family all goes to church; and I did
too, when I was in high school. But when
I went away to college I became friendly with some people who are gay, and I
know that as Catholics we’re supposed to hate gays. But I don’t hate these people; I like them.”
I said, “As Catholics, we’re not supposed to hate
anybody. We may not approve of some of
the things they do; but even then, as the old saying goes, we’re supposed to
‘love the sinner, and hate the sin’.”
We talked for a while longer. I tried to explain the teaching of the
Church—that it’s not a sin to experience same-sex attraction; that the sin
comes with certain actions that follow from the attraction (something he should
have already known since he had come to my youth group when he was in high
school). I also reminded him that
so-called ‘straight’ people can commit sins that are equally serious if they
act on their sexual impulses in the wrong way.
I even said to him, “I know people who experience same-sex
attraction—and I don’t hate them. In
fact, I consider some of them to be my friends.
Now if they’re committing a serious sin and I find out about it I
certainly don’t approve of it. (I don’t
approve of anyone’s sin, including my own!)
But I definitely don’t hate them—or anyone else for that matter.”
Well, he still had some difficulty getting his mind around
this idea of loving the sinner and hating the sin, so I finally said to him,
“Let me ask you a question. Do your
parents love you?”
He said, “Of course they do.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Well,’ I said, ‘do your parents approve of everything you do?”
He smiled a little, and said, “No.”
I said, “Then they
must hate you! You’re saying to
me that Catholics hate gays because they disapprove of some of the things that
gay people do. Well, according to that
logic, your parents must hate you, because they sometimes disapprove of some of
the things that you do.”
At that point, I think a ‘light bulb’ finally got turned
on, and he left with a promise to reflect on what I had said.
That young man, my brothers and sisters, is not alone in
his perspective. In fact, I would say
that many (maybe even most) college students right now approach contemporary moral
issues with the same erroneous ideas about love and hatred in their minds that
this young man had in his.
And so I have a homework assignment for you. (Fr. Najim gave you one last week, so I’ll
give you one today.)
It’s very simple, but very important. Recall the core idea of today’s homily, which
can be expressed in one line: “Love” and
“approval” are not synonyms; neither are “hatred” and “disapproval”.
Your assignment is to remember that fact and then to share
it with others, especially your children and your grandchildren—who need to
know it (and believe it!) long before they go to college.
