13th Sunday Year C - Homily 1

Homily 1 - 2007

I am going to start off today in an area of which I have no direct experience and where I could well get out of my depth - the world that most of you inhabit, the world of husbands and wives, of parents and children.

You were just husband and wife for a while and then the first child came along. Did that enormous love you had for your own child mean that suddenly you had less love for each other? And if a second child came along, did that mean that you had less love for your first? You certainly would have had less time for each other, and less energy – physical and emotional. Your feelings for each other may have changed, too. But I would hope that your love for each other, if anything, became even deeper; or, if it didn’t, it could have.

Time and energy are limited. In sharing them with others, you have less time and energy for each one. But love can be shared between both without in any way becoming less.

There is a problem, of course. Our love is never pure love. It’s mixed up with other things - that sometimes have the effect of its feeling stronger . But it’s not. Adolescent love can feel quite overwhelming. But even the best love will, almost inevitably, be mixed with need: “I need you. I can’t live without you.”

It can sound great – and lots of songs sing about it – but really it’s not love. It’s need, and its focus is not you but me. You trigger it off, but it’s my need that you meet. Strong, passionate, but not – essentially - love. It might put the sparkle in the eye and the spring in the step, and it feels great. But its effect can be dependence, not freedom.

It still has so much to learn. It can be something beautiful, but its real beauty, its stability, and its reliability, depend on the presence, and the growth, of real love. Real love offers. Real love gives. Real love also accepts, but real love sits lightly with needs.

What is all this about? Well, it sets up a couple of things: Loving God and loving a partner or a child need never be in real competition. The time I can give to each, and the energy I can find for them are limited – but with 24 hours in each day and 7 days in each week and 4 weeks in each month, there is usually more than enough time and energy for both.

We may find, though, that our needs may get in the way of our love. Your need for your child to like you may get in the way of your loving your spouse. Your need for your spouse, or your child, to like you may get in the way of your loving God. Truly loving both may call for tough love, for one or both... and we might be too insecure yet for tough love. But we can grow. True love requires freedom - and time.

In the Gospel today, Jesus challenged three potential disciples to decide between love or need. There should have been no problem for the last two - loving both Jesus and their parents. But things were apparently such that they couldn’t meet their own insecure needs (with the time and energy they required) and answer the call of Jesus at the same time.

With us, the problem presents differently. The way we love Jesus - the way that we answer his call - is precisely by loving others. There isn’t any conflict between loving him and loving others.

Where the problem lies is working out whether our relationships, and the time and energy that we give to others, are given out of love or out of need – whether they flow from our freedom or from our needs and insecurities.. It is up to our own consciences to show us what is operating – loving responsibility or unfree need. And sometimes, it’s hard to know for sure.