If You Love Someone With ALL Your Heart, How Much Love Do You Have Left To Give To Others?

(Thirtieth Sunday of the Year (A): This homily was given on October 29, 2023 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Exodus 22:20-26; Psalm 18:2-4, 47, 51; 1 Thessalonians 1:5c-10; Matthew 22:34-40.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Thirtieth Sunday 2023]

I begin this morning with a spiritual math question:

If you love someone with ALL your heart, how much love do you have left to give to others?

Some?  A lot?  None?

If you love someone with ALL your heart, how much love do you have left to give to others?

The answer is: It depends on who the “someone” is.

If the “Someone” is God, then to figure out how much love you have left, you’ll need to MULTIPLY.

However, if the “someone” is anyone other than God, then to properly compute the amount of love remaining in you, you will be forced either to subtract or to divide.

Let me explain . . .

In today’s gospel passage from Matthew 22, Jesus proclaims the two fundamental commandments: the commandment to love God, and the commandment to love your neighbor.

But even though they are both commands to love, there’s a crucial difference between the two—a difference that’s often missed or ignored when people read these well-known verses of Scripture.

Notice that it says you are to love God with your whole heart; it does not say that you are to love your neighbor in that way.  “Neighbor” here, incidentally, is a very broad term.  It does not refer exclusively to the wonderful people who live next door to you (although it does include them!).  The word “neighbor” in this text signifies all the human beings with whom you share your life—even your spouse and your children and the members of your extended family.

And yes, it even includes your enemies!

Thankfully, all it says is that you must love these human beings as you love yourself.  Backing up for a moment, this means that, from a Christian perspective, it’s okay to love yourself!  That may sound strange to some of us, but it’s true nonetheless.  Too much self-love, of course, is not a good thing: they call that narcissism and pride; but too little self-love is equally bad!  Contrary to popular belief, self-hatred is not a Christian virtue!

There’s obviously a balance that needs to be achieved here, which is something we should pray for: “Dear Lord, help me to love myself as you want me to love myself—not too much, but not too little either!”

This is key because if a person doesn’t love himself rightly, he won’t be able to love anyone else rightly!  The proper love of self is the necessary pre-condition for the proper love of neighbor, according to Jesus Christ.  Notice the wording of this verse: “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”

But what happens when you try to love your neighbor with your whole heart—which, according to Jesus, is the way you’re supposed to love God and God alone?

Let me answer that question with a story.  I knew a woman many years ago, whose husband died very suddenly of a heart attack.  She was a daily communicant at her home parish (which was in another part of the state).  As a couple, she and her husband had been almost inseparable: they were blessed with 3 or 4 children as well as several grandchildren; they had a great marriage; they spent most of their free time together.  And so you can imagine how I and many others felt when, 3 months after her husband died, this woman tried to take her own life!  (Thankfully she failed!)  I was a newly ordained priest at the time and I remember being stunned—absolutely stunned—especially since this woman was at Mass every single day!  It didn’t make any sense to me—until I thought about it in light of the gospel passage we just heard.

It was then that I realized that this lovely lady had made the fatal mistake of loving her husband with her whole heart!  And so, when he was gone, so was most of the love in her life—including, it seems, her love for God.

If you love someone with your whole heart—and that someone is anyone other than God—then to calculate how much love you have left to give others you have to subtract or divide.

This is why there are two commandments in this passage, and not one!  You know, Jesus could have easily said, “You shall love the Lord your God—and your neighbor—with all your heart,” but he didn’t.  That’s because Jesus understood human nature a lot better than we do.  He knew that we need to love and to be loved, but he also knew that even the person on earth who loves us the most—and whom we love the most—will sometimes let us down and fail to be there for us.  They might even stop loving us for a time, or refuse to forgive us for something we’ve done to them.  That’s to be expected, because this person—as good as he or she might be—is only human.

Only God is divine—which means that only God can always be there for us with his mercy and strength and comfort! 

But it even goes beyond that.  I said earlier that if you try to love God with your whole heart, you will have to MULTIPLY in order to figure out how much love you’ll have left to give to others. 

In other words, when you try to love God the most, he responds by multiplying the love within you (since he himself is love!).  And that leaves you with more than enough love to show to others (including your enemies).

This is what we see in the lives of holy people, and especially in the lives of the great saints of the Church.

Because St. Maximilian Kolbe, for example, tried to love God with his whole heart, he had plenty of love left in him for others, including the prisoner that he died for in the concentration camp at Auschwitz during World War II.

Because Mother Teresa of Calcutta tried to love God with her whole heart, she had plenty of love left in her to share with the poorest and most destitute souls on planet earth.

Because my mother tried to love God with her whole heart, she had more than enough love left in her for my dad, for my sister, for me—and for a lot of other people.

“You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart; you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

May the Lord help us to be faithful to these two great commandments AS THEY ARE WRITTEN down for us in THE BIBLE—so that we will have all the love that we need for the Lord, for ourselves and for other people.

 

Hypocrisy: What it is, and What it Isn’t

 

         
(Twenty-ninth Sunday of the Year (A): This homily was given on October 22, 2023 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Isaiah 45:1, 4-6; Psalm 96:1-10; 1 Thessalonians 1:1-5; Matthew 22:15-21.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Twenty-ninth Sunday 2023]

Hypocrisy can be a tool—a very useful and effective tool—to get what you want, when what you want is evil.  We see a classic example of this in today’s gospel story of Jesus’ confrontation with the Pharisees and the Herodians.  But before I get into that, let me make it clear to you what I mean when I use the word “hypocrisy.”  I think if you asked a large number of people on the street the question, “What is hypocrisy?” most would say that hypocrisy is when you don’t practice what you preach.

But that’s wrong!—although it is true that most if not all hypocrites don’t practice what they preach.  But that’s not the proper meaning of the term.  The English word hypocrisy comes from a Greek word that means “to play a part” (like an actor would in a show) or “to pretend”.  Which means that hypocrisy, properly speaking, is not when you don’t practice what you preach, it’s when you don’t BELIEVE what you preach!

A hypocrite puts on a mask when it comes to what he really thinks, when it comes to what he really believes.  He says one thing with his mouth, but believes something very different in his heart.

Which brings us to today’s gospel reading from Matthew 22.  Here Jesus is challenged by a group of Pharisees and Herodians.  This, in and of itself, is noteworthy, because these two groups normally did not like each other or agree with each other.  For example, the Herodians had a positive view of the Romans who were occupying their country, whereas the Pharisees did not.  And this was at the root of their attempt to trip Jesus up with their question about taxes.  If Jesus had said it was unlawful to pay taxes to the Romans, the Herodians would have told that to the Roman authorities and in all likelihood our Lord would have been arrested; whereas if Jesus had said it was lawful to pay, the Pharisees would have denounced him to the people, most of whom did not like the Romans and wanted them out of their country.

But it’s what they said to Jesus before they asked their question that revealed their hypocrisy.  They said, “Teacher, we know you are a truthful man and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.”

Now the Bible doesn’t tell us everything that happened 2,000 years ago when this event took place historically, but we can certainly speculate on the matter. And so, I wonder: when the Pharisees and Herodians said this to Jesus—when they said to him, “Teacher, we know you are a truthful man and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth”—did our Lord laugh in their faces?  He could have—because he knew they didn’t believe a word of what had just come out of their mouths! These, after all, were the very same guys who had been telling the people, “This Jesus casts out demons with the help of Beelzebul the prince of demons.” These were the same guys who were plotting our Lord’s death because they thought he was a blasphemer.  And that’s why our Lord calls them hypocrites here.  If they said what they really believed, they would have told our Lord, “Teacher, we know you are a liar and that you teach the way of the devil in accordance with his lies and deceptions.”

Because that’s what they really thought.

I said at the beginning that hypocrisy can be a tool—a very useful and effective tool—to get what you want, when what you want is evil.  The Pharisees and Herodians used it in an attempt to discredit Jesus and perhaps even get him arrested.  That was the evil they were seeking.  Thankfully they failed, and the evil they desired never became a reality. 

But it doesn’t always happen that way.  Some of our leaders in this country, for example, who identify themselves as “devout Catholics” do everything in their power to promote practices that Jesus Christ, through his Church, condemns.  It starts with abortion, but unfortunately, with some, it doesn’t end there.  With some, it involves a whole host of issues.

That’s hypocrisy—pure and simple.  You say your Catholic, but you really don’t believe in Catholicism because you reject basic, fundamental moral teachings of the Church.

But it goes far beyond the religious dimension of life; hypocrisy can be a problem regarding many things.  For example, I’m reading a book right now by Dr. Bill Donahue of the Catholic League called “War on Virtue”.  It’s about the cultural and moral decay that’s currently taking place in our country and which has been going on now for several decades.

At one point in the book Dr. Donahue talks about an invitation he received in the late 1990s to a big conference in California—a conference for people in the entertainment industry.  Here’s what he wrote:

In the late 1990s, David Horowitz invited me to attend a huge conference in California—with actors, producers, and directors—that addressed various controversial issues that were brewing in Hollywood.  After listening to many of the speakers, I got a chance to say a few words.  After I spoke, the man sitting next to me on the platform turned to me and said, “They’re going to have to get you extra security to escort you out of here.”

What did I say that was so controversial?  I told the crowd they were a bunch of phonies.  One after another, I said, you came to the microphone to tell us that you don’t allow your children to watch the television shows that you make.  No, you said, your children watch Nickelodeon.  I asked, “So whose children are your shows good for?”  They knew exactly what I meant.  There was dead silence.

No doubt those actors, producers and directors would have told you that their work was of the highest quality, but that’s not what they actually believed.  If they believed that their programs were of the highest quality, they would certainly have allowed their own children to watch them.  But they did not.

That’s hypocrisy.  Remember, hypocrisy is not when you fail to practice what you preach.  (We all do that.  We all fail in various ways to live the faith—to practice the faith—that we profess.  That’s why we have the sacrament of Reconciliation.  Praise God!)

Hypocrisy occurs when you don’t actually believe what you profess.  May the Lord help us to avoid all hypocrisy in our own lives, and may he change the hearts and minds and attitudes of those who, like the Pharisees and the Herodians, have fallen into it, and who are currently using their hypocrisy as a tool for evil. May these men and women finally come to believe—and to live—the full truth of the Gospel.  Amen.

In a World of Moral Confusion, There Can be no Peace

 

(Twenty-seventh Sunday of the Year (A): This homily was given on October 8, 2023 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalm 80:9-20; Philippians 4:6-9; Matthew 21:33-43.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Twenty-seventh Sunday 2023]

In the movie, Schindler’s List, Amon Goeth, the commandant of the Nazi labor camp, took a young, Jewish girl to be his personal maidservant.  At one point in the film, this girl had a private and very disturbing conversation with Oskar Schindler.  With deep fear in her voice she said to him, “I know that someday my master will shoot me.”  Schindler, at first, couldn’t believe it, and he tried to assure her that the commandant was really quite fond of her.  But she insisted, “No, someday he will shoot me.”  She then spoke of what she had seen the previous day.  She said that she had seen him walk out of his quarters, draw his gun, and shoot a Jewish woman who was walking by with a bundle in her hand. 

Listen, now, to her description of the woman—and her very insightful comment.  She said, “Just a woman on her way somewhere.  No fatter, or thinner, or slower, or faster than anyone else; and I couldn’t guess what she had done [to provoke him].  The more you see of the commandant, the more you see there are no set rules that you can live by.  You can’t say to yourself, ‘If I follow these rules, I will be safe.’”

That girl was absolutely correct: In a world of moral confusion, there can be no safety, and, consequently, no peace.  She understood that in the “world” of that Nazi labor camp, right and wrong had been blurred to such an extent, that she couldn’t determine what was “right” in the mind of the commandant.  What pleased him at one moment might not please him in the next.  And if he happened to have a gun in his hand when he wasn’t pleased, she knew she could easily end up like the woman with the bundle in her hand.

In today’s world, most people say they want peace, do they not?  And yet, many of them also want their moral relativism: that is to say, they want to be able to define right and wrong for themselves.  But you cannot have both.  It’s not—and it never can be—peace and moral relativism; it’s either peace or it’s moral relativism. 

Consider, for example, terrorism.  Terrorism—which has been undermining efforts for peace all over the world for decades now—is a practice rooted in moral relativism.  The terrorist does not accept the objective, moral truth that the direct killing of innocent people is always wrong.  In his moral relativism, he’s convinced himself that killing innocent men, women, and children is acceptable—and sometimes even virtuous.

The people at Planned Parenthood think the very same way with respect to unborn babies, as do some of our politicians (starting with the guy at the top).  So do many of the people who’ve incited riots and attacked the police in major cities all over the country in recent years.  A lot of these rioters are professed Marxists—like the founders of the Black Lives Matter Movement—who want to literally tear our society and culture down and try to create their own socialist utopia.  And speaking of people who are into destroying things, how about the hundred or so young people who went on a looting rampage in Philadelphia last week—whose actions were coordinated on social media?  That’s a perfect example of young moral relativists acting like moral relativists.

If there’s ever going to be peace—the true peace that people say they want—then the moral relativists of this world have to accept the objective, moral norm that innocent human life is always to be respected.  Basically that means they need to accept the fact that the Ten Commandments are commandments, not suggestions or recommendations!

In a world of moral confusion, there can be no safety, and, consequently, no peace.

By the way, please remember this the next time you vote.  If you vote for people who reject objective, moral standards, and support things like abortion, sexual immorality, violence and the like, then you are indirectly undermining world peace—whether you realize it or not.

Now I know this message about objective morality is not a popular one these days.  But the fact of the matter is it never has been!—as today’s Gospel text from Matthew 21 makes very clear.  Here Jesus tells a parable about a landowner who leased his vineyard out to tenants and then sent servants to the tenants at harvest time.  Those “servants” were the Old Testament prophets, who preached the Ten Commandments and “objective morality” to the people of Israel.  And what kind of reception did these prophets receive from the moral relativists in Old Testament Israel (of which there were many!)?  Jesus told us, using the imagery of the parable.  He said, “The tenants seized the servants and one they beat, another they killed, and a third they stoned.  Again he sent other servants, more numerous than the first ones, but they treated them in the same way.”

What a comforting thought to those of us who continue to preach this message!

I’ll give the final word today to St. Paul, who also knew and taught that objective morality is the only path to happiness and peace.  What he said to the Philippians in this second reading, he says to all of us this morning:

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about THESE things.  Keep on doing what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me.  Then [and I might add ONLY then] will the God of peace be with you.