HOMILY WEEKDAY 20 05 – Year I
Going Beyond the Law:
Memorial of St. Bernard of Clairvaux
(Ruth 1:1-22; Ps 146; Mt 22:34-40)
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Keep it simple, sweetheart! We are probably more accustomed to a less flattering version of that saying, but I prefer this more positive rendering.
It also applies to the teaching of Jesus when asked which was the greatest commandment. Jesus caught the Pharisees by surprise – instead of answering with a lengthy dissertation on the Law and a complicated explanation in which they were hoping to trap him, Jesus kept it simple. He didn’t focus on the negative “don’ts” of the commandments. Instead, Jesus went to the heart of the law: love!
Actually, in his teaching, Jesus summarized the whole bible (all the law and the prophets) in two simple sentences: We are to love God with our whole being, and our neighbor as ourselves. That is all God is asking of the Sadducees, Pharisees and us – it can’t be simpler than that.
The first commandment – to love God with our whole heart, soul and mind, is actually the great Shema of Judaism – what they were instructed by Moses to teach their children, wear on their arms, place on their foreheads, and inscribe on the door frame of their houses, so certainly the Pharisees were familiar with this. Actually, I saw a rabbi at the Western Wall in Jerusalem placing an amulet on the forehead of a tourist as he took off his baseball cap, and a man wrapping a leather tong around his arm as he prayed at the airport, so they take this teaching literally.
What they did not know was what Jesus did next – take an obscure law from Leviticus 19:18 – love your neighbor as yourself – and place it on an equal par to the Great Schema (“and a second is like it”). Now, to love one’s neighbor as we love ourselves is just as important as loving God. In fact, perhaps the best way we can love God is not through worship as such, but by loving our neighbor as we love ourselves. That is a totally new teaching that would certainly take the Pharisees by surprise.
In his teachings, Jesus added some levels to these two core commandments, fleshing them out a bit more. We are to love our neighbor “as he has loved us.” That raised the bar even higher – not just to love, but to love the way Jesus loved – totally and unconditionally. On top of that, we are to love others by loving our enemies, just as Jesus loved those who were crucifying him. Jesus was forgiving them, even as he hung on the cross they had put him on. The teaching is simple and clear – we must love our enemies by forgiving them from the heart.
Perhaps the hardest aspect of this simple teaching of Jesus is to love ourselves. That seems to be a struggle for so many people. We are so hard on ourselves, beat ourselves up, even abuse ourselves verbally and physically because we can’t seem to forgive ourselves. I did my share of that, and was told by a friend my refusal to forgive myself was worse than anything else I had done! That got through to me and nudged me to greater self-forgiveness. One young lady who had an abortion started isolating, stopped eating properly and confessed her sin repeatedly for years, unable to believe God could forgive her and unable to forgive herself. It took a lot of processing her feelings, spiritual direction and reconciliation to move her to finally forgive herself and find a way to make amends.
Ruth, in the first reading today, is an outstanding example of the kind of love Jesus is teaching us – a love going beyond the law to the heart of the law which is compassion infused with mercy. Going back to her own people like Orpah would have been very understandable, but she knew a widow without sons in that society was very vulnerable and destined for destitution. She had compassion and empathy on Naomi and chose to remain loyal to her. That is truly loving a neighbor!
Our challenge is to do the same – not just try to keep laws that in many ways limit the scope of love, but to truly care for others by reaching out and going the extra mile – helping others be reconciled, changing the topic when gossip starts to happen, looking for ways that we can make the world a better place.
St Bernard of Clairvaux
We are given a model to follow today of trusting completely in God’s love – St. Bernard of Clairvaux. He was born near Dijon, France, in 1090 of a noble family. In his Apologia, he wrote it was because of his unruly nature that he chose the newly founded Cistercians, thinking their austerity could tame him. At age 22 he joined the new monastery at Cîteaux, founded 14 years earlier to reject laxity and riches of the Benedictine Order such as Cluny, and to return to a primitive poverty and austerity of life.
His remarkable enthusiasm helped persuade his uncle, four of his brothers and two-dozen friends to join him. Within three years he was sent out with 12 monks to a diocese in Champagne where, in a valley that came to be known as the Valley of Light (‘Clairvaux’) Bernard founded the monastery where he served as abbot for the rest of his life.
Bernard was a man of great holiness and wisdom, and although often in poor health because of his austerities, he was active in many of the great public debates of the time. From the time he became abbot until his death in 1153, Bernard dominated the religious and political life of Western Europe. He strongly opposed the luxurious lives of some of the clergy, and fought against the persecution of the Jews. He was a prolific writer, of an inspiring rather than a technical kind, and his writings have had a lasting influence on Catholic spirituality. His efforts even had an effect on Cluny, inspiring reform efforts there. His abbey became the mother house of dozens of Cistercian monasteries around the world. By the time of his death, the Cistercian Order had grown from one house to 343, of which 68 were daughter house of Clairvaux itself. When Bernard died, Europe mourned. He was canonized in 1174 and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1830.
The Eucharist is a personal and communal encounter with the One who had a loving, intimate relationship with the Father, and out of that loving relationship, loved us and the whole world with a total selfless love.
May our celebration today empower us to go beyond laws, rules and regulations, to love God with our whole being, and to love others as we finally have learned to love ourselves.
