Jesus becomes the measure of our love

Archbishop Thomas Wenski preached this homily while celebrating a vigil Mass for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time at Ocean Reef Interdenominational Chapel in Key Largo, Feb. 11, 2023.

Let me wish you all an early “Happy Valentine’s Day.” Today people might think that Valentine’s Day was invented by a chocolate company. But, no, we did it: the Catholic Church. Valentine was a Catholic priest of Rome who around the year 350 or so was put in prison for preaching the Gospel. While in prison before his execution he used to send notes to his parishioner saying: Remember your Valentine or simply “I love you.” And that’s how Valentine’s Day started.

Of course, nowadays, the word “love” is frequently used and misused. Most commonly, it represents what the ancient Greeks called “Eros”; that is, the erotic love between a man and a woman. But the Church, following the teachings of Jesus and the example of saints like Valentine, from her earliest days, proposed a new vision of self-sacrificial love expressed in the word “agape”. The natural human love between a man and a woman is a beautiful and sacred thing but it needs discipline and maturity, it needs ‘agape’ if it is to attain its true dignity and purpose.

In the Gospel today – which is a continuation of the Sermon on the Mount which we have been hearing for the past several weeks – like Moses on Mount Sinai, Jesus is also laying down a new law to those who would be the new people of God, people of a new covenant, a New Testament.

In doing so, he does not abolish to old Law and the prophets – but rather he is fulfilling them, bringing them to completeness or perfection. Jesus perfects the law and prophets – and gives us a new law, one that is meant to perfect or complete us. That new law is like the old but with a twist. If the old law says love God and love your neighbor as you love yourself, the new law of Jesus – a law that he gives its finest expression at the Last Supper – is simple, love one another, as I have loved you.

As we heard in the First Reading: “If you choose you can keep the commandments, they will save you; if you trust in God you too shall live.” We are put before a choice: fire and water, life and death, good and evil.

We can live either for the “kingdom of God” or for our own “consolation.” Is our pursuit of happiness – or in more biblical language, our pursuit of “blessedness” – to be exhausted only in terms of this earthly life; or do we look beyond to a greater horizon – to eternal life?

If we do, then, Jesus becomes the measure of our love: If we want to know what love is, look at Jesus. In Jesus, love endures all, love forgives all. There’s a Latin phrase, I believe from Thomas Aquinas, Nemo dat quo non habet. Nobody can give what he doesn’t have.

Which is why we are here today: We come to the table of God’s Word and the altar of sacrifice. We know our wounds – our lack of love for our neighbor, not to mention our lack of love for those we may consider our adversaries; our lack of love for ourselves. At the beginning of every Mass, we acknowledge our sins; and before we approach the Lord’s table, we pray: Lord, I am not worthy, say but the word and my soul shall be healed. If we are going to love as Jesus loves, we need Jesus.