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1. Today we continue our reading of that part of
the Saint John's Gospel which recounts for us the words
which Jesus spoke to his disciples at the last meal he
was to share with them before his arrest. Just a few
days later he would be put to death. And we can
appreciate, as we recall his words today, how anxious
his disciples and friends would have been to remember as
much as they could of what he had said to them while on
that occasion. Now that he has returned definitively to
his Father in heaven, he is no longer with them to speak
with them. So they try to remember as best they can the
things he had said to them previously. And, of course,
they would give special attention and importance to what
he said to them at their last meeting together. What he
said then would have been his leave-taking, his
farewell, as it were. And we can well imagine that
Jesus would have been anxious to let them know what
their relationship with him would be like when he was no
longer with them in flesh and blood - "These things I
have spoken with you while I am still with you." His
departure will mean a new relationship between him and
his disciples. It may not be physical as before but it
will be no less real and they will not be separated from
him.
They
remembered him saying - "If you love me, you will keep
my commandments." He did say other things as well such
as that he would send the Spirit to be with them for
ever, that he would not leave them desolate, that he
would remain with them always. But the saying about
loving him and keeping his commandments seems to have
had special significance for them for the fourteenth and
fifteenth chapters of Saint John's Gospel are saturated
with Jesus repeatedly insisting that love will be at the
heart of his relationship with his friends and followers
and their relationship with one another.
Later
on in that same talk to his disciples Jesus will spell
out what his commandment is "My commandment is this;
love one another, just as I love you ..." And he will
go on to explain exactly what that means - "The greatest
love a person can have for his friends is to give his
life for them." And that indeed is precisely what he
did himself just a few days after he had spoken those
words.
2. There is something strong and stark and simple
in the way Jesus speaks about love. There is no mention
of feelings, emotions; nothing sentimental. He is
speaking of something much more profound and radical,
something deeper than what might appear on the surface
of life. He is speaking of something so strong that it
can bind us to him in the same way as he is bound to the
Father - "In that day you will know that I am in my
Father, and you in me and I in you." - and that is an
eternal and unbreakable bond.
How
shallow and trivial our own way of speaking and thinking
of love is compared to Jesus' understanding of it. We,
by and large, have reduced it to something which is
meant to bring me pleasure, to make me happy.
3. We need to recover that sense of love of which
Jesus speaks if our relationships with him and with each
other are to have any depth or permanence. There are
many who do love in this way but who are not aware of so
doing because the glittering image of love as portrayed
to them by the world seems to have so little to do with
their daily lives. When they compare their lives to
what they see on the screen and read in magazines about
love they wonder if they love at all. Archbishop Romero
of San Salvador, who himself was to become a martyr, at
one stage felt he needed to remind his people of what
that love, which was a readiness to give one's life,
really mean in terms of day to day living. This is what
he said - "To give one's life is not just being killed
by someone; to give one's life is to have the spirit of
martyrdom, to give through one's duty, in silence, in
prayer, in the faithful performance of one's
obligations, in that silence of daily life, to go on
giving one's life, like the mother who, without fuss,
with the simplicity of maternal martyrdom, gives birth,
suckles her child, helps it grow and looks after it with
love. This is to give one's life." (Michael
Campbell-Johnston, A Tribute to Oscar Romero,
The Tablet, 18 July 1998, p 953)
Something like that is reflected also in the
remark of one of the protagonists in the novel 'Silent
Witness' when she says- "In a strange way, she said,
it's been like a lot of my life, like people are when
they have kids they love and a marriage that isn't right
enough to be really happy or wrong enough to change -
you do what you need to do for the people around you,
and try not to ask yourself too hard how you feel about
it." (Richard North Patterson, Silent Witness,
Arrow Books, London, 1997, p 415)
4. But it not only our personal relationships that
need to be salvaged from a trivialised understanding of
love. The world in which we live is a world in which we
are becoming increasingly interdependent day by day.
The world is rapidly becoming what we have been calling
it for some time now, a 'global village'. In a world
like that, if we are to survive, we must treat each
other as brothers and sisters, members of one family,
and not as competitors, exploiting one another for our
own personal benefit. This was one of the great themes
of many of S. Radhkrishnan's talks and writings. It the
collection entitled Towards a
New
World
almost every page is a plea for a new world order in
which all would be treated with dignity and respect.
The following quotation is taken more or less at random
- "Today, all peoples of the world form a close
neighbourhood, thanks to the inventions of science and
the devices of technology. Transport and communication
have resulted in the meeting of cultures, race and
religions. The only attitude that we can adopt in the
present context is an attitude not of exclusiveness but
of comprehension, not of intolerance but of
understanding, not of hatred and fanaticism but of
appreciation and assimilation of whatever is valuable.
We
really do need that love of which Jesus speaks, a love
which is strong and supportive, a love which binds and
builds up and which gives life.
QUOTATIONS
1. Laurie Lee has described our attitude to love
well in his book ’I can't stay long.“ "..: but
perhaps the main cause of failure still lies in our
attitude to love itself - that it is good only so long
as it pleases, and that as soon as it drops one degree
below the level of self-satisfaction it is somehow
improper to attempt to preserve it. / This is but the
natural expression of that contemporary fallacy - the
divine right to personal happiness, the rule of
self-love, to be enjoyed without effort, at no matter
what cost to others. .... In claiming the sanction to
withdraw from any relationship the moment our happiness
appears less that perfect, we are acting out a delusion
which results in the denial of everything but the most
trivial kind of love." (ibid pp 61-62)
And
later on he reflects that it is this shallowness in our
attitude towards love that underlies the brokenness of
our modern world - "Of all the pressures that threaten
the wholeness of modern man, the fissures in love are
the most foreboding. There is not less of love but less
continuity in it, shallower grounds for its survival.
Love must be deeper to adapt to the shifting sands of
the world; able to withstand disaffection and occasional
betrayals; be sufficiently constant,...... , to create
its own area of sacred quiet." (ibid) |
