Over the last eight weeks we’ve had Laetare Sunday, Palm Sunday also called Passion Sunday, Easter Sunday, Divine Mercy Sunday, and Good Shepherd Sunday. Last week, we might’ve called “Vine and Branches Sunday”. This week we could call “Love Sunday”. For, in just the second reading and the Gospel, the word “love” is used 17 times.
Love is at the heart of the Christian faith. When I am preparing couples for marriage, I ask them a series of questions about themselves and their relationship. ’ ‘How did you meet?’ ‘When long have you dated?’ ‘What kind of interests and activities do you share?’ ‘What values or lessons from your parents do you hope to put into practice in your own marriage?’ ‘What do you want to do differently?”
The toughest question perhaps is a true or false question. ‘True or false,’ I ask. ‘Love is all you need for a happy marriage.’ Is love all you need for a happy marriage? Some of them think it is a trick question, and they try looking at my face to see what answer I want.
Is love all we need, as John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison sang? The answer really depends on our definition of love. Sometimes we use the word love to mean a lot of things. We say, I love ice cream, I love classical music, I love summer, I love bacon, I love the Cleveland browns, which is like saying I love suffering and tragedy; but that goes to show you, the word love has many meanings.
Even many of the great love stories in literature are very confused about the notion of love. I remember back in high school reading Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” great love story. Yet, really…is that love? A 3 day teenage romance that caused 6 deaths? Romeo decided that he loved the 13 year old Juliet before even talking to her, and married her two hours later. Are raging teenage hormones the same as love? Is this sort of irrational impulsive selfishness the same as love?
Up until 2009, with the release of the movie Avatar, the top grossing movie in the USA was a love story—the movie “Titanic”, raking in over 650 million dollars, world-wide in brought in 2.1 billion dollars. Dreamy Leonardo DiCaprio played a poor boy named Jack and Kate Winslet played upper-class Rose. And in this story, Jack and Rose, coming from two different worlds socially, meet and “fall in love.” And then the romance turns to tragedy as—spoiler alert –on her maiden voyage the ship hits an iceberg in the northern Atlantic and begins to sink.
This movie was really popular all those years ago back in 1997, especially among girls between the ages of 13-18. They didn’t just go see the movie one or two times, they went to see it 4, 5, 6, 7 times.
There was a survey done about why these young girls went to see this movie so many times. And, you may be surprised…It wasn’t because they really liked boats. And, It wasn’t because they had the hots for Leonardo DiCaprio—after all he was in a number of films before and after Titanic which didn’t make a quarter of the money.
So what why was Titanic so successful? In the end, it was a movie about two unlikely people falling in love, and when the chips were down and the ship is sinking, jack is in the freezing water, and making sure that Rose is safe up on the floating plank, and jack begins to slip, and she is calling out his name, and she’s weeping, and every girl in the theater is weeping, her heart is being torn out, because it is a story about a man who sacrifices his life for his beloved.
After Titanic came out in 1997, Carnival cruise lines had records sales, and their stock went through the roof. All these people saw a movie about a sinking ship in the middle of the atlantic, and their first thought was, I have to go on one of those. No, they wanted the opportunity to meet someone who would love them as Jack loved Rose. Willing to drown in freezing water so that the love of his life would live.
In many of the great love stories, we detect echoes, of the greatest love story ever told, and it’s not a movie starring meg ryan or tom hanks. Rather it’s the great story starring you and me and Him. “There is no greater love, than for one to lay down his life for his friend.” The Lord Says. Now love one another as I love you.
Deep down, we are not looking for the impulsive romance of Romeo and Juliet. We aren’t looking for the passionate romance of Rose and Jack or Meg and Tom. Rather, we are made to know and recognize and emulate, the love of Jesus Christ.
Many Christians have not truly considered the depths of his love for us. They see a crucifix as religious decoration. But that crucifix is the blue print for a the fulfillment you are longing for. To know that you are loved that much, and to go out and love others that much. That will change your life.
On this mother’s day weekend, we consider those women who were often the first teachers of what authentic Christ-like love looks like—we consider their self-sacrifice, their dying-to-self which enables new life to flourish. And we are so grateful for them and for their love.
And yet, at the heart of the Christian faith is a love even greater than the love Mothers have for their children. “In this way the love of God was revealed to us” St. John wrote, “God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him.” We are loved so immensely by God, that he was willing to leave paradise, become man, and without an ounce of selfishness or impulsivity or irrationality, he died for us that we regain that which was lost by sin. The just one died for the unjust.
This is not Jack dying for Rose because she’s pretty. Jesus died for us because we’re not. The soul turned away from God in selfishness is an ugly soul. Yet, he died anyway.
And he then gives us a command: love one another, as I love you. The charity we are to exercise toward others isn’t to be based on their good looks, or their merits, their ability to pay us back. We are to love those who are totally incapable of repaying us. Those who tomorrow might turn around and strike us on the cheek. This is the love Jesus has for us, this is the love we are have for one another…for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
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