Through Jesus’ passionate love, we gain life

Passion Sunday, Mar. 25, 2012
Fr. Anthony Brankin

(Full text of sermon) Often pundits talk about the dumbing-down of our twentieth and twenty-first century society.

Think of it: our parents and grandparents—who probably had very little formal education were more understanding and aware of things and ideas and processes and even vocabulary than any of their children or grandchildren This dumbing down certainly has taken place in America of course—look at our speech and vocabulary.

A child of only fifty years ago was not only aware of Latin—he used Latin type words in his everyday speech. Certainly he was familiar with Latin because of the Mass, but that child was also aware that so much of our language came from Latin—and that fact helped that child immeasurably in understanding the words he or she might use and therefore why we use them.

Wild and reckless

That being said, I think particularly of the word Passion since the Fifth Sunday of Lent was traditionally called “Passion Sunday” (referring of course to the Passion of Our Lord). Now some poor little 6th grader—or under-educated college professor— would see or hear that word—passion— and immediately think something vulgar. They would immediately associate the word passion with something wild and reckless and emotional and hormonal. You get the picture—the word passion for moderns means hardly more than some animalistic response to some sort of primal mating need.

Passion is thoughtless, totally overwhelming and totally consuming.

For moderns passion excuses every excess. He came upon his enemy and in the heat of passion slew him or they could not control their passions.

This is so often how we use this word. Our younger people would be forgiven for asking: how is it that what Jesus endured in his final days is called Passion? After all, they ask, wasn’t the cross an instrument of pain and shame and discomfort? Didn’t they beat him and whip Him and spit at Him and mock Him? And then nail Him to a cross and kill Him? How is that passion?—if passion means something uncontrollably pleasurable? Doesn’t the Story of Jesus’ last day tell us how He suffered and died at their hands? And—we call that Passion?

Passion means “to suffer”

But that is when we tell them that Passion actually means to suffer. The word passion comes from the Latin passus est. He or she endures whatever must be endured for the sake of love—for the sake of the one who is loved. And if what they must endure entails suffering—then so be it. So the word passus est or passio or passion means that he or she suffers because of love. It is beautiful to think of it that way.

The reason that this superficial age confuses passion with hormones and emotions is that we moderns have confused the word love with hormones and emotions. So much so that since we no longer understand what love is—we no longer understand of what a passionate love is.

Think of the love of a mother and father for their child. Is there anything they would not do for that child? Is there anything they would not endure for their child? Is there anything they would not suffer for their child? Of course not.

Parents and passionate love

The love of parents for their children is a passionate love par excellence.

We are talking about endless trips to the doctor so that the child would get well. We are talking about sleepless nights that yield dead-tired days—and all for the comfort and well-being of that little child. And not just when they are little! Heck—how many mothers are surprised to find that they cannot sleep until their last young adult child comes home— and they thought those days were over. No way.

Love means you worry and you work and lay awake at night for the ones you love for the rest of your life! And that is not even counting the suffering of the mother who must leave her children in the care of someone else and go to work to supplement her husband’s income—not because she wants to—but because she has been forced to—by the government and by the taxes and prices. Well she suffers supremely by not being at home—but she suffers nonetheless.

And that’s just the mothers.

I think of the fathers who work fourteen hours a day—laboring and sweating and hurting—in the sun or in a warehouse or in a mine or in the kitchen of some fancy restaurant—all for the sake of the ones they love. But this they will do and more if they have to because they love their families.

The father loves, too

And how about the poor father who is out of work? He is beside himself with anxiety. How will he feed them? How will he clothe them and keep them warm and safe—his beloved wife and children? Oh the father who loves, loves just as passionately as the mother.

Is there a father or mother anywhere who would not take upon themselves every pain and sickness if by that they could spare their child all pain or sickness? Is there a father or mother who would not give up their life if by their death the child might live? Of course not—because that is the definition of love! That we care so deeply for the one we love that we give them everything possible—our days our nights our time our tears—and even our life—if by that gift—they could live and live more fully? Do you see how all of this is the definition of true love and passionate love? That true love consists not in the bodily thrills that I take from someone—but in giving up everything I have—even my life—even to the point of death—for the sake of those whom I love.

The moderns’ shallow love

What the modern world calls love or passion—is just so sad in its superficiality. Love for moderns is no more than the nightly exchange of partners we picked up at a bar. Love for moderns is what we can take without having to give up anything. Love for moderns is what we can get without effort and without commitment. That is why fewer and fewer people get married anymore. The statistics are astounding. They ask “Why should I get married? I can have all the companionship I want—for as long as I want. And when it gets a little too difficult, a little too demanding, I can just leave.” I tell this all the time to young men who are not married in church but are living with their woman—and I say it in front of their woman—so that they know what is going on. I ask the young man: “Why would you not want to swear before God that you will take of her and your children for the rest of their lives? Why do you not want to say that before God?” (I know why—because he knows that God will hold him to it!)

Will he care for his children?

So then the guy looks at his feet and says nothing—and I say to her “Do you see that?” He doesn’t want to swear before God that he will take care of you and your children—the ones he has begotten—for the rest of your lives? Do you think he loves you in any meaningful way if he won’t swear to God that he will take care of you?” So we can see what the modern world calls love—and a passionate love—is not and cannot be love. It is actually the opposite of love. Real Love is the giving of self—Modern love is just selfish. Modern love is not passionate because it is unfaithful. We go from partner to partner in search of ever greater thrills. And yes that is why pornography and dirty magazines and bad movies are wrong—because it is all a way of being unfaithful.

Modern love is impermanent. It never stays—It never commits. It never endures hardship or difficulty—Modern love is fundamentally un-passionate—because it wont suffer for the sake of the one who is loved. Which means—that that person is not loved.

And finally modern love is infertile—it is contraceptive—it is fruitless, intentionally sterile—modern love frustrates life. In the very moment when two can become three—we kill the third.

No. Modern love is not passionate because it is not about others or suffering for others. Modern love is pretty selfish.

Hiding Our Lord

So maybe that is why we cover the statues on Passion Sunday. We are hiding our Lord from his enemies. In such beautiful childlike manner, we say, “Don’t worry Jesus. We will hide you and hide your friends. They won’t get you, Jesus.” But then maybe we are also hiding His eyes from us. Maybe we have started to buy into the world’s definition of love.

Maybe we don’t want Jesus to see us and how in our lives maybe we have made a bit of a mess of love.

Today is Easter, the day we celebrate the rising of Jesus from the dead, the definitive victory of life, when true love passionate love, conquers death by means of the Cross. What a beautiful irony that in the shadow of the cross and in the light of passion we gain eternal life.

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