Homily

There is a great difference between two categories of creation. There is the physical universe. And then there is mankind. Human beings, made in the image and likeness of God. We are substantially and radically different from the rest of creation. And this is because we are creatures capable of relationships that can be based on love, free will and moral choices. Even more than that, people are able to have a relationship not only with one another, but also with God.

Relationships. One way we can describe the Holy Bible is as a book of relationships. It's about the relationships between people, and the relationships of people with God. The two are always connected, for God created humanity to know, love and serve Him and enter into eternal life along with Him. And, at the same time, we were made to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Our relationships with other people either help us to live in this divine vocation or they work against it. So, we see in Genesis that the first damage to relationships comes when Adam and Eve rebel against God's command in favor of their desire to exercise a power as great as God's. And notice that Eve blames the serpent, which puts a blame outside of herself, and Adam blames Eve which puts a serious rupture into his relationship with her. Both of them have broken their relationship with God which is perfectly symbolized by their expulsion from Paradise. In addition, they have damaged their relationship with each other.

Maybe you've never thought about it exactly in this way but the whole Bible continues on from there as a great book of relationships: the connections between people, and their connection with God. Right after the story of the Fall we find the story of Cain and Abel. Abel has a greater love for God, and Cain hates him for that, and finally kills him. The Scriptures continue from there. We find the people who love one another and the people who hate one another; the people who love God, and the people who refuse to follow His word. The two can never be separated. We are unable to genuinely love God if we seek to deliberately harm our fellow human beings for personal gain, or out of hatred or envy, or for any unjust cause or reason. The Bible gives us story after story of how people love, or mistreat, or even destroy one another, and of how people love, disobey or even hate the Lord their God. The Scriptures are not stories of events as much as they are stories of relationships.

So why is it difficult to love God with our whole heart and our whole soul and to love our neighbor as ourselves? It's because we have a love problem. We are often trying to love ourselves first and above all others, even God. This great immaturity in love easily leads us to sin against God and against one another and that sin then fuels our foolish egos. Our failings to love God and our failings to love one another are not always even seen as marks of our immaturity. Sometimes we even tell ourselves they are marks of our strength and symbols of our superior standing. But there is no lasting satisfaction in turning away from God, there is no lasting pleasure in harming others, only a deeper sense of loss and emptiness and alienation from our human vocation.

As people in our time continue to abandon God, is it any wonder that they also can find it very easy to abandon honesty, rational thinking, and a genuine concern for their neighbor, even as we are told, “this is for the greater good.” Every new cause in our recent history that comes down the road and is against the law of Christ is proclaimed as important and necessary for the good of other people. For example, we are told that murder in the womb is an action taken for the health of women. Don’t you care about the health of women? Destroying one is saving another. How can you be against saving someone? A child’s life is pitted against its mother’s life. What can be more divisive than that? We see one social movement after another coming at us. Do they actually unite us, or are they only causes that divide us from one another and from God?

We heard the epistle. It's no wonder St. Paul is ticked off about what is happening with the parish in Corinth where people are dividing themselves into groups and are fighting with each other. Paul doesn't really say much about what they were fighting over, but it's obvious that each faction thought they were better than the other groups. And worst of all when did these factions come into play? When they gathered together to pray! When they came to celebrate the Eucharist! The one time when one should expect they would all be at peace and in a state of grace and unity with God and with one another as brothers and sisters in Christ, is the time where their divisions and sins become most visible. St. Paul is horrified, but I don't think he's surprised. He knows it is easy to turn away from God, even if you consider yourself to be very pious. Didn't he formerly hate Christ? He knows it is easy to turn against your fellow man. Didn't he formerly persecute the Christians? But he also knows that the most important antidote to both of these problems is found in the mystery of the sacrificial love of Christ crucified, and in the sharing of His Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist.

This should be why we come to Liturgy: to immerse ourselves into Christ crucified, so that we can see in His sacrifice the unending depth of the love He has for us. In seeing that love, may we in turn be tempted to love Him more and better. We come to Liturgy to receive His Body and Blood so that united with Him, we are sustained and fed so that we may, in turn, come to better love our neighbor, even if our neighbor lives with us. This growth in strengthening our relationship with God and our neighbor is rarely dramatic and explosive. Breaking apart relationships is often dramatic, but even if it is not, it is so very easy to do. Building up our union with God and neighbor, especially through our participation in the Liturgy is not as easy. It depends on our participation in the Liturgy, and how open we are, and how much desire we may have to be open to the love of God and neighbor. If we could truly see the grace for our relationships available for us here, I think we would be amazed. But even if we can only come with the eyes of faith, that should be enough to encourage us to invest ourselves in this Holy Liturgy here, to invest our lives more deeply in the love of Christ, and to see ourselves and our relationships in the light of His love.