“No, I don’t think I will
kiss you, although you need kissing, badly. That’s what’s wrong with you. You
should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how.”
Rhett Butler has a good dose of rascal in him, but he
demonstrates some deep insights into the human nature. Modern psychology
has demonstrated that each one of us needs to have someone to depend on, a
loved one who can offer us reliable emotional connection and comfort. This type
of connection is a basic human need for each of us. We are literally hard wired with this need for relationship.
No surprisingly, this need for emotional connection is part
of the way that God created us, in the image and likeness of God. The Genesis
narrative tells us, “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18),
so God created Eve as a helpmate and equal partner for him. God completes the
image of God by the creation of man and woman together in relationship. Mysteriously
this man-woman relationship mirrors the love of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit
(Ephesians 5:32).
In today’s Gospel, we have the famous summary of the law in
which Jesus notes the two-fold need to “love the Lord your God with all
your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength” and
to “love your neighbor as yourself.”
Unfortunately, for many people, the very use of the word law brings to mind rules, discipline and duties. While young boys can learn many virtues from scouting, our faith is not a Boy Scout project. “I will do my best to do my duty to God.”
Summarizing the law in this way, changes the focus from duty to love and relationship. As someone has wisely said, “Rules without relationship lead to rebellion.” The proper way to understand the law is through intimate relationship with God.
More than this, this relationship takes place in and through an interior communion with God’s love in the Spirit (Jeremiah 31:31-33; CCC 1966, 1972). Unlike the Old Law the New Law of Christ “consists essentially in the precepts of love of God and neighbor” and “is the grace of the Holy Spirit received by faith in Christ, operating through charity” (CCC 1974, 1983).
We call the most intimate connection between God and his people, communion. The reality is, though, there can be no communion without a secure sense of personal intimacy. Just as we can wrongly experience rules without relationship, it is also possible to experience ritual without a sense of personal intimacy.
Perhaps the scribe in our Gospel reading senses this when he says the summary of the law is “worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” Jesus is standing in the Temple when this dialogue takes place.
While it is always true that the sacraments have a spiritual effect, the benefits received depend on our disposition and cooperation, or more simply put on our relationship with God.
St. Pope John Paul II highlighted this problem more than thirty years ago. He observed that often when children are baptized in infancy, and later end up coming for catechesis in the parish, they do so “without receiving any other initiation into the faith and still without any explicit personal attachment to Jesus Christ” (CT 19). As a result, catechesis often fails.
There can be no communion without a personal intimacy.
Children raised on duty alone, or the "rules without relationship” approach, will not likely find meaning in the Church. They are missing the crucial ingredient, relationship with God. As St. John Paul II notes, the proclamation of the Gospel introduces man “into the mystery of the love of God, who invites him to enter into a personal relationship with himself in Christ” (RM 44).
Yet, this problem is not limited to children. Each one of us needs to experience what St. John Paul II calls, “explicit personal attachment to Jesus Christ.” Yet, perhaps some people are not able to relate to this bride and bridegroom metaphor found in Sacred Scripture.
Does
God really invite us to have a relationship with him that is a sort of spiritual
romance?
How would we respond if we heard our Lord say to us, “You
need kissing, badly. That’s what’s wrong with you. You should be kissed and
often, and by someone who knows how?” I do not think these words
would shock St. Teresa of Ávila, or St. John of the Cross, but how do we hear
them?
I suspect our response is tied to our culture. Hispanics,
Italians, and the French all regularly greet their friends and family with
kisses, but English culture is more reserved.
If you find this metaphor hard to relate to, perhaps we could
change the words to “You need love badly. That’s what’s wrong with
you. You should be loved and often, and by someone who knows how.”
Another helpful way to understand God’s love is through the
metaphor of a parent and child. St. Paul tells us we are sons and daughters of
God;
For those who are led by
the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive
a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of
adoption, through which we cry, “Abba, Father!” The Spirit itself
bears witness with our spirit that we are children of
God.” (Romans 8:14–17).
As St. Josemaría Escrivá has reminded us,
“…God is a Father -- your
Father! -- full of warmth and infinite love. Call him Father frequently and
tell him, when you are alone, that you love him, that you love him very much,
and that you feel proud and strong because you are his son [or daughter]” The Forge, 331.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us that the love of God
is our first and most important relationship. It requires everything from us. We must
love him with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind and
with all or strength. We must discover, like St. Augustine, that our
heart is restless until it finds rest in God (CCC 1718). So today Lord, open
our hearts to receive your loving embrace. Let us be transformed by your love.
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