Authentic Love and the Discovery of Fire

The gospel for the 5th Sunday of Easter Cycle C contains one of most powerful admonitions that Jesus offered his disciples:  “I give you a new commandment: Love one another as I have loved you (John 13:34).”  I’d like to share a true story about a young couple from Chicago that will help explain the profound meaning of this gospel.  Peter and Linda were both just 21 years old and had been dating for almost two years.  Peter planned to ask Linda to marry him.

One evening, Peter and a friend were involved in a horrible accident, and Peter was thrown from the car.  He suffered a severe concussion and ended up in a deep coma.  The doctors told Peter’s family and friends that he probably wouldn’t survive.  Even if he did, he would remain in a comatose state.  In the sad days ahead, Linda spent all of her spare time at the hospital.  Night after night, for three and a half months, Linda sat at Peter’s bedside, speaking words of encouragement to him, even though he gave no sign that he heard her.  Then one night, Linda saw Peter’s toe move.  A few nights later she saw his eyelash flutter.  This was all she needed.  Against the advice of the doctors, she quit her job and became his constant companion.  She spent hours every day massaging his arms and legs.

Eventually Linda arranged for Peter to go home.  She spent all of her savings on a swimming pool, hoping that the sun and water would restore life to his motionless limbs.  Then came the day when Peter spoke his first word since the accident.  It was only a grunt, but Linda understood it.  Gradually, with Linda’s help, those grunts turned into words – clear words.  Finally, the day came when Peter was able to ask Linda’s father if he could marry her.  Linda’s father said, “When you can walk down the aisle, Peter, Linda will be yours.”

Two years later, Peter walked down the aisle of Our Lady of Pompeii Catholic Church in Chicago.  He had to use a walker, but he was walking.  Every television station in the city covered that wedding, and newspapers all over the country published the story with pictures of Peter and Linda.  Celebrities called to congratulate them.  People from as far away as Australia sent them letters and presents.  And families all over the world with loved ones in comas called to ask them for advice.  Today, Peter is living a very normal life.  He speaks slowly, but clearly.  He walks slowly, but without a walker.  Peter and Linda even have a lovely little baby girl.

The story of Peter and Linda is a beautiful commentary on the words of Jesus in John’s gospel:  “I give you a new commandment: Love one another.  As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.  This is how the world will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)

If there is one thing that we desperately need in our world today, it’s to rediscover the power of Authentic Love – self-giving love.  Jesus is calling us to a relationship with others modeled on his love, a love that Saint Paul describes so well in 1 Corinthians 13.  This is a love that we’re never tired of hearing about, a love that we want for ourselves, a love that we are called to extend to others: “a love that is patient, a love that is kind.  It is not jealous, pompous, or inflated.  It does not seek its own interests, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth, a love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things, a love that never fails.”  The story of Peter and Linda illustrates that this kind of love has tremendous power.  It has the power to change the world.  It has the power to bring people back from the brink of death to life.  It has the power to bring people back from hopeless sickness to perfect health.  It has the power to inspire people all over the world and give them new hope, as Linda’s love for Peter did.

In the early 1980s, an unusual film was playing in movie theaters across the nation.  It was called The Quest for Fire.  Its French producer said that it fulfilled a lifelong dream.  He had always dreamed of celebrating in film the discovery of fire, for it was the discovery of fire 80,000 years ago that saved the people on planet Earth from total extinction.  It was the discovery of fire that made it possible DSCF1884for them to make tools for survival and to protect themselves from the cold.

Today, people on the planet Earth are beginning to worry again that we are headed for total extinction.  Today, people on the planet Earth are beginning to worry again that we are teetering on the brink of a global disaster.  This time, the danger comes not from something basic like the lack of fire, but from something even more basic – the lack of Authentic Love, the kind of love that Jesus preached, the kind of unfailing, unconditional, self-giving love that Linda had for Peter.

This makes us wonder and ask ourselves a profound and frightening question.  Will someone 80,000 years from now make a movie to celebrate the rediscovery of Authentic Love in the 21st Century?  Will someone 80,000 years from now make a movie to celebrate the only thing that saved our planet from extinction?  Will someone 80,000 years from now make a movie to celebrate the outpouring for Authentic Love that came forth from the Christian community in the 21st Century and changed the world?  Only the future and only the Christian community will be able to answer that question.  Only you and I, and millions of Christians like us, hold the answer to those questions somewhere deep down in our hearts.

This gospel is an invitation for us to look into our heart-of-hearts today and see how we ourselves are answering that question by our own lives of Authentic Love – especially within our families, for we must begin to change the world in the family, or we won’t change it at all.  “I give you a new commandment.  Love one another, and love them as I have loved you.”

“Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of Authentic Love, and then, for the second time in the history of the world, man will discover fire.”      Teilhard de Chardin

 

Deacon Greg Ollick teaches sacred scripture for Saint Joseph’s College Online. He is a permanent deacon in the Archdiocese of Atlanta and runs The Epiphany Initiative website.

To Be Like a Child…Again

In his gospel account St. Matthew describes a moment in which Jesus interrupts His preaching to bring a child before the crowd. He commands them, “unless you turn and become like children you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” It’s easy to gloss over this statement as simply a call to trust in God. After all, children are the epitome of trusting. They look up to us adults who are bigger, stronger, and know lots of things they don’t. Children place themselves in our hands and believe we’ll take care of them. Likewise, we should trust that our heavenly Father knows better than we do, and that He’ll take care of us. All of this is true of course; but there’s much more to Jesus’ words.

It was during the Divine Liturgy on the Sunday before the Fast began that Jesus’ words about being children suddenly struck me. Perhaps it was the convergence of hearing the Koshute 3 2day’s Propers (recalling Adam and Eve, who were both the Original Children and First Parents), Fr. Popson’s homily on the importance of mercy and forgiveness, and the sound of children crying, cooing and laughing. It all got me to thinking about how I approach the Fast, and my relationship with God in general. The Fast is not just my chance to repent, but to begin the process of living a converted life. To do this requires not only personal discipline and the guidance of the Church, but childlike wonder. Consider the snow, which for adults is a back-breaking commute spoiler. But a child sees in the snowflake a world of wonder. Put many flakes together and new possibilities open up. Children make angels, snowmen, forts, and projectiles with which to torment friends and siblings. The point is that where adults first see obstacles and nuisance, the child sees novelty, beauty and creative opportunities Of course we have responsibilities, and things like snowstorms do require our attention. Our maturity and experience are necessary to protect children and ourselves; but it can also wear away at our own sense of wonder.

We’ve all experienced a child’s meltdown. Either as a parent or an observer, we know that sometimes a child needs a moment (or twenty) away to calm down. Yet when I heard the sounds and watched the movements of children on that Cheesefare Sunday I thought of my own proper and often mechanical disposition before God. I know when to sit, when to bow, and when to bless myself. Children aren’t as well disciplined because they’re still learning (and we have a duty to teach them), but the wonder they possess – even if it’s only in fleeting moments throughout the hour – are moments of praising God I can only hope to achieve. Children look at the icons (really look – not just stare straight ahead at Father’s back). They point up to the ceiling at the larger-than-life Jesus watching them, and they wave at Father when he emerges from behind the mysterious screen to bless. They turn up their little faces and open their mouths to receive Jesus just the way they receive their nourishment at breakfast or dinner. Children aren’t always still or quiet, but they are often engaged in the Liturgy in a way I’m not. The child wonders what’s going on, while I take it for granted – and check my watch a few times. Sure, the child doesn’t understand most of what’s going on. But when the priest brings out the chalice and we say to a child, “There’s Jesus,” he actually looks for Him.

The Fast is interminably “slow” when I mistake rigid adherence to the law (leaving no room for the “surprise” of encountering the living God), with authentic spiritual maturity. No, I shouldn’t get up in the middle of Father’s homily, babbling and waving. And, no, I shouldn’t throw a tantrum on a Lenten Friday and demand a burger and piece of chocolate cake. To act in such childish ways is not proper to who I am as an adult, or a person striving in the Faith. Adults must be adults; children are counting on it. But as I make my way through the Fast, seeking God’s mercy – and learning to love Him and others more intimately – I won’t be successful unless I heed Jesus’ words and become childlike. If I squash the wonder and pure delight found in seeking and meeting Christ, then I will never grow up to be God’s own precious child.

“To be a child means to owe one’s existence to another, and even in our adult life we never quite reach the point where we no longer have to give thanks for being the person we are.”  Hans Urs von Balthasar

Ann Koshute teaches theology for Saint Joseph’s College Online.