LOVE IN ACTION
Very few people believe that there is anything to be taught about love. The act of loving is seen as easy, but finding someone or something worthy of one's affection is seen as more challenging. When we talk about someone being "attractive," we usually mean that they have a desirable set of traits. What is considered physically and intellectually attractive changes over time. Love relationships among humans follow the same pattern of exchange that governs the commodity and the labor market, which is hardly surprising in a culture where the marketing orientation predominates and where material success is the outstanding value.
I invite you to reflect on the Bible readings of this Sunday through the lens of two classical literary works. Erich Fromm's "The Art of Loving" is a fascinating look at love and how it shapes our lives and relationships. Fromm questions traditional understandings of love and places an emphasis on deliberate action, self-awareness, and compassion. Insights and actionable advice are provided for developing genuine and transformative love in all spheres of life, and the book encourages readers to reflect on their own beliefs and actions.
The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky's last novel, is widely regarded as his best work. It has a "grandeur" that makes one think of "the greatest creations of Western literature," as Joseph Frank put it. This novel "Brothers Karamazov" demonstrates that it is through the act of loving that we grow as individuals and as a society. To paraphrase Poznar (1992), "Dostoevsky is concerned with an active love that teaches us how to love individual human beings, with all their frailties and flaws", rather than an abstract "love of humankind."
The insights on love in action is demonstrated in the conversations between Father Zosima and Madame Khokhlakov, who expresses skepticism about the existence of genuine happiness and the veracity of those who claim to experience it. She also has real doubts about the mystery of afterlife. Father Zosima acknowledges that proof in such matters is impossible, but he argues that we can still be persuaded. He advises that when we try to love our neighbors in a dynamic and unrelenting way, we will strengthen our faith in God and the afterlife. Doubt cannot enter our hearts if we are completely selfless. Father Zosima shares with Madame Khokhlakov a story of a doctor who had a deep love for all people, but that this love had diminished his capacity to love specific individuals. When faced with actual people, his lofty ideals of dying on the cross for his fellow humans would be quickly replaced by feelings of hatred.
Most of us don't see God as the issue. God's creations, namely the scum of the earth who bother us and don't deserve to be here, are the source of the problem. Troublemakers tend to cluster when people get close. Eventually, the people who are closest to us will limit our precious independence. Paradoxically, the person closest to us is the best indicator of how far we are from God. St. Paul understood this. That's why our connection with God is so intrinsically linked to the bonds we form within our families and communities. The fact that loving God wholeheartedly and loving our neighbors as ourselves are the two "great commandments" is not the only similarity between them. It's the idea that our connections to God are reflected in our connections to one another.
Love, after all, defies all attempts at explanation, though we, at times, feel that we know all about it. It requires risking one's pride by putting others before oneself and seeking to serve rather than be served. This danger is central to the Christian understanding of love's mystery: first, that God would love us; and second, that we, blessed by such abundance, might lavishly love others. In the parable Jesus told to the chief priests and elders, one son says the right things but does nothing, while the other son puts up some resistance at first but ends up helping out in the vineyard. The second kid follows God's instructions and follows God’s plans. Just saying it isn't enough. That's why former sinners like tax collectors and prostitutes are welcomed into the kingdom ahead of those who just talk the talk. Today we are invited to put our lofty ideals of love into meaningful acts of loving, in the footsteps of Christ who ‘emptied himself, taking the form of a slave … obedient to the point of death.’
Fr Tom Kunnel, C.O.