Solemnity of the Most Holy Body & Blood of Christ, Year A
Theme: We Love Too Little 我們愛得太少
Each one of us is unique. Our maturity level, if there is such a scale, is also unique. By maturity, I mean how much we are able to leave behind our infantile mind and acts. Psychologists believe that when a child is born, it is not aware of itself. Through interactions with the environment and others, it begins to build up boundaries, what is within reach and what’s not. Internal sensations such as hunger, thirst and heat trigger acts. Crying is able to summon some beings to relieve its needs. Smiling is able to reinforce more actions from the same beings to gratify its needs. Need gratification brings pleasure and good feelings. Pain is uncomfortable and therefore it is bad. Some beings who always bring pleasure become the “significant others”. Gradually, an ego is built up … The infant is really busy all the time to explore, to discover and even to manipulate the beings and the world around it. Psychologists believe that thumb-sucking is a sign of intelligence and self-awareness! Seeking pleasure and avoiding pain are natural actions for an infant when it is aware of itself.But no man is an island. We’re living in a community together to support each other. Times and again, we need to give up our own benefits, interests and pleasures etc. for the greater good, namely the good of the community. Altruism becomes a virtue because the community sanctions such acts that facilitate its survival into the future. Therefore, a person is mature when he/she is able to think and act for the good of the others to a certain degree. Some may focus exclusively on the immediate family members for their whole life. Others may care for a bigger neighbourhood after they are rich enough. Yet others are prepared to forfeit even their lives for the defence of their fatherland! Of course, this is not the one and only one absolute scale of maturity. I’m sure other ways to measure maturity are possible as long as they are based on the most essential element of life, namely love. What is love, if it is not acting for the good of the others? Parental love, I believe, is the first love everybody encounters. How mature one will be is partially determined by the parental love that has nurtured and continues to nurture him because many human acts are conditioned by memories.
In the first reading today, which is an excerpt of a discourse in which Moses invoked the memories of the Israelites to exhort their observance of the Sinai Covenant. “Remember then the Lord, your God, for He is the one who gives you the power to get wealth, by fulfilling, as He has now done, the covenant He swore to your ancestors” (Deuteronomy 8:18). Firstly, the Lord is faithful. He honours the pledge He made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob by multiplying the Israelites in the land of Egypt and then liberating them from slavery. Secondly, the Lord loves them by providing them with good things in the Promised Land, “a land with streams of water … of wheat and barley … where you will always have bread and where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones contain iron and in whose hills you can mine copper” (8:7-9). To a certain extent, parents are faithful and they love their children like the Lord within their means and power! But the Lord is almighty and His love is infinite.
Then Moses warns the Israelites of the danger of becoming complacent and ungrateful! They must not forget the Lord who provides all the good things for them. What indicators show that they have forgotten the Lord? “Be careful not to forget the Lord, your God, by failing to keep His commandments and ordinances and statutes which I enjoin on you today” (8:11). Thus, keeping the commandments means they remember and are grateful. Jesus further clarifies, “Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him” (John 14:21). As far as we know from reading the gospels, Jesus only gave one new commandment to the disciples in the Last Supper (13:34). In 14:21, Jesus uses the plural form of the word “commandment”. Obviously, He is speaking in the capacity of the Lord God. Jesus is teaching us to love God by keeping the commandments given by Him. For the Jews, there are 613 commandments, laws, rules and precepts. How is it possible to keep them all? So, Jesus highlighted and summarized them all in the two greatest commandments (Deuteronomy 6:4-5, Leviticus 19:18b) when He was being challenged. The essential element is going out of oneself to do whatever is beneficial and good for the others.
In all civilizations, there are legends of heroes. They went through challenges and trials to prove their worthiness to go down into history, to be remembered and admired by all. The very existence of such legends in all civilizations refracts a universal desire deep down the psyche of every person: that we want to be remembered in posterity. Now, what incident in Abraham’s life is best remembered? Of course it is the story of his offering up of Isaac as a human sacrifice to God! The Israelites were proud of their ancestor who passed God’s test in flying colours. The side-effect is that they had so bad-mouthed God that Yahweh was made into a deity of domestic violence, ill-treating both the elderly and the juvenile! In the light of hero legends, we are able to interpret our afflictions and sufferings in a more positive manner, namely an opportunity to prove our worth so that we’ll be remembered in posterity! “Remember how for these forty years the Lord, your God, has directed all your journeying in the wilderness, so as to test you by affliction, to know what was in your heart: to keep his commandments, or not” (Deuteronomy 8:2). Wait a minute! Isn’t God all-knowing? He already knows what is in our hearts. Why bother to test us by affliction? Of course God knows but we don’t! Therefore, all those tests are opportunities to make us know ourselves better, and to prove our worthiness. In Jesus’ words, to allow us to prove how much we love Him!
Like the manna which the Israelites did not understand, the Holy Eucharist is also difficult to understand though theologians have come up with the idea of “transubstantiation” to explain it. I suspect the difficulty lies in the level of maturity one has attained. By the time we love more and struggle against God less, we’ll appreciate how immense and overwhelming God’s love can be! After all, hero legends are wrong because they promote a wrong idea which Moses rebukes, “It is my own power and strength of my own hand that has got me this wealth” (Deuteronomy 8:17). No! It is God’s love that enable and empower us to succeed in whatever we do, including loving Him in return.
Brethren! “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Amen.
2020 Reflection
Picture Credit: blogs.getty.edu
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