“We are made by love and for love. On earth we learn to love. At death we shall take our examination on love. If we have trained ourselves well enough, we shall live eternally in Love. Now, here below, every time that we love ourselves with a selfish love, we fail a little in carrying out God’s plan for us and for the world. There are but two loves, love of ourselves and love God and others. To live is to choose between these two loves.”
So begins the prose introduction to Michael Quoist’s Poem, “There Are Two Loves Only.” That title and the poem crystalize today’s readings. Selections from the poem are printed in bold through today’s reflection.
Jeremiah 17:5-8
We met Jeremiah last week. God said, “Whom shall I send?” Jeremiah, once he had been purified by the burning ember, said, “Here am I. Send me.” By today, God has sent Jeremiah to prophesy to Judah of its great sins through 17 chapters. Jeremiah began to name the sins to the people, especially worshiping other gods. The people ignored him. God then had Jeremiah do various things to give people a picture of what they were doing, such as buy, ruin, and wear a linen loincloth to physically represent to Judah her sins (Chapter 13) and remain celibate (Chapter 16). Today God gives Jeremiah the image of a shrub in the desert or a tree planted by water that remains green and bears fruit.
The message: there are two loves only—love of self and love of God and others.
From Quoist’s poem:
“There are two loves only, Lord.
Love of myself and love of you and others.
And each time that I love myself, it’s a little less love for you and for others,
It’s a draining away of love,
It’s a loss of love,
For love is meant to leave self and fly toward others.
Each time it is diverted to myself, it withers, rots and dies.
Love of self is a poison that I absorb each day.”
Luke 6:17, 20-26
Today’s reading from Luke is a selection from what Luke calls, “The Sermon on the Plain.” It is Luke’s summary of Jesus preaching, his equivalent of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). Today we hear Luke’s shortened version of the beatitudes. Luke’s list is shorter and is accompanied by a list of woes.
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for the kingdom of God is yours.
Blessed are you who are now hungry,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who are now weeping,
for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you,
and when they exclude and insult you,
and denounce your name as evil
on account of the Son of Man.
But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
Woe to you who are filled now,
for you will be hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will grieve and weep.
Woe to you when all speak well of you,
for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way.”
Because it seems to me that the Beatitudes are fulfillments of the 10 Commandments, and thus the positive expressions of God’s Way of Living, just as the 10 Commandments are the “shall nots” of God’s way, I have read many explanations through the years of the differences in Matthew’s list and Luke’s list.
Luke’s list is shorter. It is more focused on people in serious need—those who are poor, hungry, sad, and persecuted. It is not “Blessed are you poor in spirit,” but “Blessed are you poor.” Luke’s Gospel in general gives a stronger message than Matthew’s Gospel that a Christian at least ministers to and stands in solidarity with the poor, the marginalized, the wounded and traumatized.
Luke’s list also has the list of woes—all of which could be seen as “Woe to the comfortable.” Luke can be seen to be saying, “If you want to be blessed by God, be poor. Be physically and practically poor.” Thomas Dubay has a book, Blessed Are the Poor,” which I read again about every other year. Dubay interprets the Gospel today to say we Christians must at least choose to live simply with a willingness to share whatever we have.
I have found Dubay’s advice good. Does Luke require simple, shared living of us? I don’t know. Even though I live simply and with sharing by US standards, I am aware that by standards in most of the world, I am rich. All this leaves me unsettled when I read this in Luke and when I consider these lines from Michael Quoist,
“What is more serious, Lord, is that love of self is a stolen love.
It was destined for others; they needed it to live, to thrive, and I have destroyed it.
So the love of self creates human suffering,
So the love of men for themselves creates human misery,
All the sufferings of men,
All the miseries of men.”
I Corinthians 15:12, 16-20
Nestled between Jeremiah and Luke is today’s reading from I Corinthians. At first reading, it doesn’t seem to fit. It is about belief in the resurrection. Yet it was this reading that sent me looking for Quoist’s poem. This reading helps me also remember Matthew’s words of Jesus from the early part of Holy Week:
‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous* will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ (Matthew 25:34-39)
For a writing project I have been studying the parables the past few months. Do you know that none of the books I have read has considered this a parable? It follows on a string of parables, but it is not a parable. It is not considered a word picture like Jeremiah’s bush in the desert and tree by the stream. It is considered Jesus’ final description of what is expected of us in loving others.
Prayer to Love
These are the final lines of Quoist’s poem. It is my very thoughtful prayer today, as I come to the conclusion that because we are people of the resurrection, we are called to love in the way God loves, by uniting ourselves to God’s love–and living with whatever the consequences of that turn out to be:
“Help me to love, Lord,
Not to waste my powers of love,
To love myself less and less in order to love others more and more,
That around me, no one should suffer or die because I have stolen the love they needed to live.
Jesus answers,
Son, you will never succeed in putting enough love into the heart of man and into the world,
For man and the world are hungry for an infinite love,
And God alone can love with a boundless love.
But if you want, son, I give you my Life,
Draw it within you.
I give you my heart, I give it to my sons.
Love with my heart, son,
And all together you will feed the world, and you will save it.”
“There Are Two Loves Only,” from Prayers by Michael Quoist, translated from the French by Agnes M Forsyth and Anne Marie de Commaille, © in English 1963 by Sheed and Ward. I thought this book was out of print, but it is available in a 1985 edition. I heartily recommend it.
