It is so easy to spiritualize concrete social problems
like hunger and poverty by doing nothing about them except to pray for those
who are suffering. That is why many of
us can be misled to believe that to fulfil our Christian obligation it is
enough to express our love of God by our devotional piety. We make sure that we go to Church for our
prayers, devotions, and religious observance.
Loving God by way of our pious activities is of itself
praiseworthy as long as this does not lead us to spiritual escapism—meaning,
the tendency to withdraw from the hard realities of life and seek easy
solutions in devotional spiritual practices.
When we are confronted with the real needs of our poor neighbours and we
offer no commitment in helping them in whatever way we can, our prayers may be
a form of escape from the inconveniences of offering concrete and helpful
solutions, our devotional piety may actually be devoid of authentic love of
God.
Others may move towards the opposite direction. They may be so consumed by the horror of
human suffering that they commit their whole life in the service of the
suffering neighbours and altogether forget about God. Therefore, no more need for prayer or going
to Church. This is the pitfall of activism. This happens when our love of
neighbour does not stem from our love of God.
Today’s gospel (Mt. 22: 34-40) presents to us the two
greatest commandments and allows us to see that the indissolubility of their
essential connection is the foundation of an authentic Christian moral life.
“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all you heart, with all your soul, and
with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second
is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (vv. 37-39).
Love of God and love of neighbour have to be seen as
intersecting demands of love lest we fall into the traps of spiritual escapism,
on the one hand, and of activism, on the other. The Catechism
for Filipino Catholics explains this interactive relationship between these
two commandments of love in three levels:
As Christians, then, we know, first, that our genuine human love is a participation in God’s
love. “Love consists in this, not that we have loved God, but that He has loved
us” (1 Jn 4:10). Second, through
Christ and the Spirit, God is really present in both our neighbour’s and our
very own loving. “If we love one another, God dwells in us and His love is
brought to perfection in us” (1 Jn 4:12). Thus, our love for our neighbour
contains within it a direct orientation to God. Third, our explicit love of God clearly brings out our deepest love
of neighbour (CFC, par. 944).
Hence, one is a liar when he claims to love God whom he
cannot see and not love his fellow whom he can see.
Once, I was heading on foot to a chapel in Marikina to
celebrate an anticipated mass as a guest priest. It was almost dark. While passing
by a food chain, I smelt something repulsively foul as I saw the garbage was
being scavenged by what I thought were dogs.
I was taken aback when I realized that they were not dogs. I saw a man,
a woman and a child eating the left over thrown into the garbage. The picture of a family having dinner in that garbage
with its stomach-turning stench would haunt me until now. That evening while the
community who invited me was celebrating Eucharist in praise of God’s name, a
family was trying to survive by eating the community’s refuse. During the
homily, I made mention of what I saw and how I was tremendously disturbed. How
can we profess love of God as a community when all at the same time we just
accept as a matter of fact a family to be reduced to such subhuman living conditions?
The chapel was very silent. Probably we were all disturbed.
I realized today’s gospel is actually disturbing. The commandment of love disturbs our
otherwise complacent life. Love, after
all, is inherently disturbing. When we
commit to respond to God’s love, we find ourselves challenged to reach out not
only to God but to those who need our love badly.
I was not bound to stay with the community for I was a
passing guest priest. But, at the least,
I was able to share my feeling of disturbance.
The community ought to be disturbed so that the love they have for God
may become the very force that propels them to respond to the hunger of their neighbours.
We all individually seem to be helpless in front of the
magnitude of the call to love our neighbour.
But again, we can and we ought to face the challenge of loving our neighbours
as communities. This is the value of
forming organizations. Our religious organizations
ought to empower each of us to respond to the challenge of loving—that through
the love of God shared together by all members, they may have the collective means
to respond to the neighbours’ evident hunger for love.
Love of God and love of neighbour are at the heart of our
Christian moral life. If we take them separately and unrelated to each other we
end up impoverishing the power of love. Love becomes lame, unable to respond to the challenge
of authentic change in our communities. But taken together, they make for the
most disturbing principle that propels all Christians to live according to the
vision of the God of love.
