What’s love got to do with it?

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JMJ

The Readings for the Memorial of St Vincent de Paul
Thursday ihthe 25th Week of Ordinary Time (B2)

Deus, qui sacrae legis omnia constituta in tua et proximi dilectione posuisti…
O God, whou founded all the commands of your sacred Law upon love of you and of our neighbor…

As I’ve mentioned before Dom Mark advises preachers to “preach the propers”. I’ve been wrestling with this idea all week and it finally hit me when I saw that the memorial of St Vincent de Paul was upon us. The name of St Vincent de Paul is probably most often connected in our minds with one of the most active charities in all the world, which, itself, is part of the Largest Charity Organization in the world, in all history.
No Christian can even claim the name if there is no active charity in their life. we do this each to our ability and our calling: in his latter days my grandfather gave away literally the entire family inheritance to a Church in his tiny town in north Georgia. The blessings of that action still rebound to our family. God gave us stuffonly to give it away, to share with others, with those who have nothing. Even when I think I have nothing, I always meet someone who has less. Our charity, though, is not our love.
Fr Z notesthat this prayer came into the Roman mass via an ancient Italian liturgical tradition and he sites a passage in St Matthew which seems to be the source of this prayer:

“But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they came together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, to test him. ‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?’ And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets’” (Matthew 22:34-40).

And there’s this citation from St Thomas Aquinas’ commentary on the passage:

When man is loved, God is loved, since man is the image of God.

So what is love?

St Thomas has us there, as well: To love is to will the good of another.

Good, also: is very well defined. God is good. God is the ultimate good. Yes, charity and acts of service are important, but God is the final and and goal of all being: if you’re not willing someone else to God-wards, you are not acting in love.

As Fr Z points out, “All of the Law is summed up in Jesus’ two-fold command of love of God and neighbor. The first part of the two-fold law is about unconditional love of God. The second follows as its consequence. We must cultivate our different loves in their proper order. God comes first, always. Always.”

We have it in our mushy liberal hearts that “love” has something to do with “don’t judge me”. We have set up the idea that God wants us to open the doors and let everyone in, like a 24/7 Denny’s. Love is not a “second hand emotion” but rather the driving force that created the universe. It sends us to hell and back in service to another person. It will not settle for second best. It weeps over the addict anddraws her away from her addiction. It can be gentle, nearly passive; or love can be tough to the point of self-destruction in the name of rescuing another.

We cannot love another by simply saying, “Do what ever makes you happy”. For our end and ultimate Good is God. And to walk away from God in any way is not to be acting to one’s own Good.

But how do you will the good of another and yet woo them? How do you notcondemn and yet not condone? How do you call someone Godward without pushing them away?

Author: Huw Richardson

A Dominican Tertiary living in San Francisco, CA. He feeds the homeless and is studying to be a Roman Catholic Deacon. He enjoys cooking, keto, cats, long urban hikes, and SF Beer Week.