11th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 2012
(Full sermon text) What an interesting confluence of celebrations this week: We celebrate the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Father’s day—and all at the same time that we are getting ready for the so-called Fortnight for Freedom.
Let us begin with the most important of the Feasts—that of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This is one of the most beautiful celebrations of our beautiful religion—precisely because it is about the most beautiful thing in our human experience—and that of course is love.
When you think about it, you realize that everything in this universe is about love. Whether we are struggling and scraping and clawing our way through this valley of tears—or if we are in heaven rejoicing to be with all our ancestors and parents and grandparents, our life is about love. Our life is about the love of God here and which we share with each other. It is also about how that earthly love leads always to life in heaven.
First we must realize that God created us not because He needed to create—but because His love was so abundant that it overflowed into creation. God’s love exploded—so to speak—into the creation of the Universe.
The stars and planets and angels and humans are all reflections and hints and sparks of God—pieces of His Life and His love.
True love creates and expands life
It all starts with love. But what is love? Love is the will, the intention, the desire to do good for others—to share good—to spread good. Love is to desire good things for another person, and only for the sake of that person. Real love is never selfish. It is always given away and bestowed upon someone else. It is never about what we receive. True love (and God’s love is first and truest) creates and expands life. If all that God created is good—then the more creation there is means the more goodness there is.
Simply put, this is the all important paradigm: When God loves, He creates. When we love, we create.
Now God wants his creations to reach their fulfillment—and for us humans—that means God wants us to be good—to eventually to be with Him in Heaven. But when we are not good—when we sin—when we draw away from Him and hurt ourselves and others and frustrate God’s designs for us, He does not draw away from us. He comes closer. He forgives. He offers a second chance to us. He holds out His open broken heart as an offering to us in order to tempt us back to Him.
God knows that without His love there is no life. Without His life there is no love. That, actually is the Story of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This is the secret of the Sacred Heart. God’s love is so huge that all he wants for us is Life with Him—and no matter the cost—even if it might mean a cross for His Son. And on this Father’s Day we can see that there is something of the Sacred Heart in our fathers who must also be like God. Our fathers (to be good fathers) must be all about love and all about life. Just as God’s love is not selfish but is self-sacrificing, then neither is a father’s love selfish. And it too must be self-sacrificing.
A good earthly father
A father’s love is all about others—his wife—his children—his family. A good father will do whatever he can—even when he does not feel like it—to keep his family alive and well. And why? Because he loves them.
And he will not count the cost to himself even if it means his very life.
He will work 12—14 hours a day—and be away from them for all that time—even though he misses them terribly. He will even go to other countries and send money back for them. He will go to Mass and pray for them. He will suffer for his family and struggle for them and do everything possible so that they will have food and shelter and life. That’s what God does. That is what a father does. He loves and he gives life; and then he takes care of life he has created.
So you see how love and life are always inseparable. Love always leads to life. However, if you separate the two—if you separate love from life—you ruin both.
That, of course, is the modern problem: the world tries to separate love from life and says that love has nothing to do with life. The world re-defines love by saying that love is not something you give—your efforts—your time—your life—but something you receive—candy, gifts, pleasure—most especially pleasure.
Contraception “redefined” love
Of all the inventions of the last hundred—and more than anything else—it is contraception that has redefined love for modern people. Contraception teaches very surely and very subtly that love is primarily the pleasure we take in a relationship—and nothing more—and certainly not about the possibility and responsibility of children. In fact, for moderns, the creation of children is not the natural result of love, but is something that is either coldly planned or an unfortunate accident. Love for this world—and you see it every night in every show and every day on every billboard—is only about pleasure—and not about life.
The Holy Father has warned us for many years that in the very moment that we use contraception, we are destroying the intrinsic connection between love and life. We are therefore redefining love as a pleasurable coupling only and therefore cheapening love and laying our relationships open to all kinds of abuse and sadness and regret.
The irony of contraception is that once you deny life—once you guarantee that you won’t have babies—then you deny true love and all that true love means in life. Contraception destroys things like devotion— loyalty—self-sacrifice—faithfulness—all the qualities that make us truly human. With no family as part of the equation, why should anyone be true or faithful? Life and love is all about me—and my pleasure—and nothing more. And anything that gets in the way of me getting all the pleasure I can is to be removed.
Modern love is only about “me”
Modern love, by definition, is selfish because it is not about others. It is not about my spouse nor about children. It is about me and my pleasure. And it is about me because it can not and will not produce life.
That is why the Church for two thousand years has said that contraception is seriously wrong because it tells a lie about love. It says love is not about giving—but about taking—that love is not fruitful—but sterile. And that is a lie.
Contraception has given us our present world where men do not marry their women—preferring to take advantage of them—to taking care of them. Contraception has given us a world where women accept their role as sexual objects. Contraception has given us a culture where parents resent children rather than rejoice in them.
Modern love—ironically—makes everyone hate each other.
You can draw a straight line back from every tear that every man or woman ever shed in the midst of relational difficulties to one or both of them thinking that their love was about taking and not about giving.
This is where all the modern, broken hearts have come from in all the families and in all the relationships.
This is the understanding of love and life that has given us 50 million abortions in 25 years as well as millions of divorces—tens of millions of children without married parents—gay marriage, pornography, cannibals, vampires and vamps. Modern love is about pleasure—and not about children.
Ripping apart the link between love and life
The whole thing with the Obama and administration—the Fortnight for Freedom Campaign—is not nearly so much about religious freedom as it is about our belief in the necessary link between love and life, and that as people with brains and hearts we will not stand by and watch our families—mothers, fathers and children— being destroyed by ripping apart the link between love and life. This is what birth control does and is that which the government promotes relentlessly—and for which it will now try to make us pay.
The neuralgic point between the Church of Christ and the government of Obama is that we believe in a God who is so full of love that He gives us life—and life to the full. And they do not. That is what we are all about.
That is what this religious freedom thing is really all about. The Church is so wise and so loving that she knows that whatever prevents life—perverts love. And that we just will not be part of.
Listen, if the world has tricked you these last forty years about love and life and birth control—just pray about what we have said. Then go to confession—spill your heart out to Our Lord, and everything will be made right. After all He is the Sacred Heart and the love in His heart will yield life in your soul. And that is the way of it. And it is beautiful.