“Yes, I have found my place in the Church and it is You, O my God, who have given me this place; in the heart of the Church, my Mother, I shall be Love. Thus I shall be everything, and thus my dream will be realized… I am only a child, powerless and weak, and yet it is my weakness that gives me the boldness of offering myself as victim of your Love, O Jesus!…Yes, in order that Love be fully satisfied, it is necessary that It lower Itself, that that It lower Itself to nothingness and transform this nothingness into fire.” (Journey of a Soul, entry for September 8, 1896)
St. Therese of Lisieux is a doctor of the Church, not for her Summa Theologica, but for her Little Way of Love, described here in her autobiography. She was a very Victorian young woman who often expressed herself in ways foreign to our modern perspectives, but both her autobiography and historical research show that her love was as tough and strong as Jeremiah’s in the first reading or Jesus’ in the Gospel. No matter how others responded to her, St. Therese chose to actively love.
Love with a tender heart and a tough skin is the theme of all three readings for this Sunday.
Luke 4:21-30
The Gospel reading follows immediately on last Sunday’s Gospel. Last Sunday, Jesus, who had just begun his active ministry with authoritative teaching and active healing, returned to read from Isaiah in the synagogue in Nazareth. The words he read were understood to be about the coming Messiah. As he sat down, he said the words that overlap the two readings, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”
I wonder if human Jesus know how MUCH they were fulfilled, for immediately he needed a tough skin to implement his tender-hearted, compassionate words. I can just imagine what people might have said as they left synagogue:
“What did you think about how Jesus read from Isaiah? He had an authority to his voice.”
“I’ve always thought he was a fine young man, but—what did he mean by what he said when he sat down? Who does he think he is, anyway? He’s just one of us.”
“I heard he cast out some demons over in Capernaum. Why did he go over there? We’ve got plenty of crazy people here! I’d like to see him cast demons out of old Jonathan!! He’s been a wild man for years.”
And so on and so on and so on.
Jesus accepted the challenge, toughened his skin, threw some banter back in the naysayers’ direction, and stayed his course. Oh, my, where did Mary’s son get that bravado? Outraged, the people who had been proud of Jesus before the service were now ready to throw him off the cliff. They didn’t, but surely they trampled all over his tender heart.
Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19
Jeremiah faced a similar predicament. Jeremiah was a prophet in Jerusalem for about 30 years before the fall to Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BC. He stayed in Jerusalem through that attack and the second one ten years later. He also wrote the book of Lamentations and is generally known for being a prophet of doom and gloom—that all came true. He was created and called by God to speak unpopular Truth—and he suffered much for it.
Tough Skin and Tender Heart
Whether from the point of view of Therese of Lisieux or Jesus in his hometown or Jeremiah prophesying a devastating war—probably none of us would look forward to being rejected, persecuted, or even suffering quietly from ordinary meanness.
Yet, prayer this week tells me that sooner or later, we are probably ALL called to be loving in the face of the taunts, rejection, or out-and-out cruelty of others. Such behaviors are part of fallen human nature, easily triggered by ordinary stresses and events, and a part of life. We all need to develop some tough skin to protect our ability to live from a tender heart.
It is with awareness of this that the familiar passage from 1 Corinthians is especially valuable today.
I Corinthians 12:31-13:13
This well-known passage about “Love is….” also follows right after last week’s readings. Last week, in chapter 12, St. Paul talked about how we, as Christian community, are all one body, though many members. Both last week and the week before, he talked about charisms or gifts—what each of us is created and called to do within the Kingdom of God.
While we often apply this chapter to couple and family love, Paul puts it squarely in the middle of his discussion of Christian community—the church.
It is within both the church perspective and the family perspective that I would like to call attention to Pope Francis’ elaboration and reflection on 1 Corinthians 13 in his encyclical, Amoris Laetitia, The Joy of Love. Paragraphs 90 through 119 break apart each of the descriptions of love in verses 4-7:
Love is patient, love is kind.
It is not jealous, it is not pompous,
It is not inflated, it is not rude,
it does not seek its own interests,
it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury,
it does not rejoice over wrongdoing
but rejoices with the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.
You can find Pope Francis’ writing here. https://www.vatican.va/content/dam/francesco/pdf/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20160319_amoris-laetitia_en.pdf
I’m including as part of this reflection some of his commentary on “Love is patient, love is kind.” Pope Francis’ elaboration helps me when impatience moves me toward anger instead of tender-hearted service and acceptance.
Love is patient
91. The first word used is makrothyméi. This does not simply have to do with “enduring all things”, because we find that idea expressed at the end of the seventh verse. Its meaning is clarified by the Greek translation of the Old Testament, where we read that God is “slow to anger” (Ex 34:6; Num 14:18). It refers, then, to the quality of one who does not act on impulse and avoids giving offense.
We find this quality in the God of the Covenant, who calls us to imitate him also within the life of the family. Saint Paul’s texts using this word need to be read in the light of the Book of Wisdom (cf. 11:23; 12:2, 15-18), which extols God’s restraint, as leaving open the possibility of repentance, yet insists on his power, as revealed in his acts of mercy. God’s “patience”, shown in his mercy towards sinners, is a sign of his real
power.
92. Being patient does not mean letting ourselves be constantly mistreated, tolerating physical aggression or allowing other people to use us. We encounter problems whenever we think that relationships or people ought to be perfect, or when we put ourselves at the centre and expect things to turn out our way. Then everything makes us impatient, everything makes us react aggressively. Unless we cultivate patience, we will always find excuses for responding angrily. We will end up incapable of living together, antisocial, unable to control our impulses, and our families will become battlegrounds. That is why the word of God tells us: “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and slander be put away from you, with all malice” (Eph 4:31). Patience takes root when I recognize that other people also have a right to live in this world, just as they are. It does not matter if they hold me back, if they unsettle my plans, or annoy me by the way they act or think, or if they are not everything I want them to be. Love always has an aspect of deep compassion that leads to accepting the other person as part of this world, even when he or she acts differently than I would like.
Love is at the service of others
93. The next word that Paul uses is chrestéuetai. The word is used only here in the entire Bible. It is derived from chrestós: a good person, one who shows his goodness by his deeds. Here, in strict parallelism with the preceding verb, it serves as a complement. Paul wants to make it clear that “patience” is not a completely passive attitude, but one accompanied by activity, by a dynamic and creative interaction with others. The word indicates that love benefits and helps others. For this reason it is translated as “kind”; love is ever ready to be of assistance.
94. Throughout the text, it is clear that Paul wants to stress that love is more than a mere feeling. Rather, it should be understood along the lines of the Hebrew verb “to love”; it is “to do good”. As Saint Ignatius of Loyola said, “Love is shown more by deeds than by words”. It thus shows its fruitfulness and allows us to experience the happiness of giving, the nobility and grandeur of spending ourselves unstintingly, without asking to be repaid, purely for the pleasure of giving and serving.
Prayer
Thank You, Lord, for being loving in your nature, and for loving me when I am impatient or selfish. Help me to be patient and kind—in my family, in my parish, in my life. Let me follow St. Therese, Jeremiah, and Jesus. Give me enough tough skin to protect the tender heart You are forming within me.
