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Sacred Scriptures/Liturgy- Commentary on Sunday's Readings |
Unless you have
charity...
Fourth
Sunday in
Ordinary Time
Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, OFMCap, Pontifical Household Preacher
www.zenit.org
Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19; 1 Corinthians
12:31-13:13; Luke 4:21-30
This Sunday's Gospel narrates the rejection Jesus meets at Nazareth,
his hometown, the first time he returns after beginning his public
ministry. This rejection elicits the famous remark, "No prophet is
accepted in his own country."
We commented on Mark's account of this episode last year; we can
therefore focus our attention on the second reading where we find a
very important message. This is Paul's celebrated hymn to charity.
Charity is the religious term for love. This is, then, a hymn to
love, perhaps the most celebrated and sublime ever written.
When Christianity appeared on the world's stage, love had already
employed various singers. The most illustrious was Plato who wrote
an entire treatise on it. The common name for love at that time was
"eros" (this is where we get "erotic" and "eroticism" from).
Christianity sensed that this passionate and desirous love was not
adequate to express the novelty of the biblical concept. For this
reason it avoided the term "eros" and substituted that of "agape,"
which could be translated as "spiritual love" or "charity" --
although the latter term has come to acquire a too restricted
meaning: doing charity, works of charity.
The difference between "eros" and "agape" is this. Desirous or
erotic love is exclusive; it is consummated between two persons; the
interference of a third person would mean its destruction, its
betrayal. Sometimes the birth of a child can throw this kind of love
into a crisis.
The giving type of love, "agape," on the contrary embraces everyone,
no one can be excluded, not even enemies. The classical formula of "eros"
is pronounced by Violetta in Verdi's opera "La Traviata": "Love me,
Alfredo. Love me as much as I love you."
The classical formula of "agape" is that of Jesus who says: "As I
have loved you, love one another." This latter is a love that is
meant to circulate, to expand.
Another difference is this. Erotic love, in the more typical form of
"falling in love," does not last long, or it lasts only by changing
its object, that is, by falling in love with different people
successively. Of charity, however, St. Paul says that it "remains,"
indeed it is the only thing that remains in eternity, even after
faith and hope have ceased.
But between these two loves -- that of seeking and that of giving --
there is not separation and contraposition, but rather development
and growth.
"Eros" is the point of departure for us and "agape" is the point of
arrival. Between them there is room for a whole education and growth
in love. Let us take the most common case which is love between two
persons.
In the love between a husband and wife "eros" prevails at the
beginning, attraction, reciprocal desire, the conquering of the
other, and so a certain egoism. If this love does not make an effort
to enrich itself along the way with a new dimension, one of
gratuity, of reciprocal tenderness, of a capacity to forget oneself
for the other, and to project itself into children, we all know how
it will end.
Paul's message is quite relevant today. The entertainment and
advertising worlds seem bent on inculcating in young people that
love is reducible to "eros" and that "eros" is reducible to sex.
Life is presented as a continual idol in a world where everything is
beautiful, young, and healthy; where there is no growing old, no
sickness, and everyone can spend as much as they want.
But this is a colossal lie that generates unrealistic expectations,
which, once they are not met, provoke frustration, rebellion against
family and society, and often open the door to crime. The word of
God makes it such that the critical sense in people is not
altogether extinguished when this illusory vision of life is daily
proposed to them.
This page is the work of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and
Mary
