Archbishop of Sydney

4th Sunday in Ordinary Time

St. Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney
1 Cor 12:31 - 13:13

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
1 February 2004

A few nights ago I had a pleasant meal with a priest friend of mine.  He has a long term interest in the liturgy and we were discussing the English translation being prepared for the new Roman Missal.  The conversation moved on and he claimed that the second Scripture reading before the gospel should be dropped, as there is already too much Scripture for the congregation, who do not listen to the second reading.

One or two other priests have made the same point to me, but I remain unconvinced about any established need to reduce the readings.  I am never entirely sure when, or how much, the congregation listens to readings, sermon or prayers, but the Scriptures are good for us even when we are only half listening.  The real challenge is to trigger people into listening intently and with wonder to the Scriptures, but that is another story.

I told him I was unconvinced by his theory and that this weekend I was going to preach on the second reading, on the beautiful passage from St. Paul’s letter to the people of Corinth about the nature of Christian love.

Paul urges us to be ambitious for the higher gifts, i.e. faith, hope and love “and the greatest of these is love.”

He did not say that the really important things are a good education, a decent house, a well paid job.  He ranked money, power and fame even lower than these.  He did not even claim that a good marriage and family life are the highest gifts, although we cannot be at peace as individuals and we cannot build good marriages and families without real love in our hearts.

He also made it clear that the gifts which are so necessary to the Church are in fact useless if there is no love in the heart of the gifted person.  A great speaker, someone as eloquent as an angel who is without love is like a booming gong or a noisy cymbal.  A prophet without love is nothing at all.  Neither will it do us any good to be a martyr for the faith or to give away all our possessions, if there is no love in our hearts.

Paul tells us that love never comes to an end.  In heaven we will not need the gift of prophecy or the gift of languages.  We won’t even need faith because we shall see God as He is.  Therefore our imperfect human knowledge will have been superseded.  Neither shall we need the virtue of hope in heaven, because we will have arrived, we will be with God and our loved ones (if we have made the cut; if we had been separated into the sheep not the goats at the last judgement).

Our first reaction is to say that we know all this, that we understand that love is central in the Christian scheme of things.  We admire the selfless love and devotion of saintly people like Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and the wonderful service of others from some who do not have much Christian faith, such as Dr. Weary Dunlop in the Japanese prisoner of war camps.

But Paul’s description of love does not let us slide away as easily as that.  Even when we spell out that love is a four letter word with a variety of meanings, such as the love between parents and children, the love of God, the love expressed in acts of charity, sexual love between a man and a woman, the dutiful affection among friends or perhaps teacher and pupils.  Even with these distinctions, the rub that Paul applies still cannot be escaped.  Paul’s love is always patient and kind. Are you always patient and kind?  Probably some of you are, but I am often tempted to impatience, less frequently to unkindness.

As we become older we should become much better at being patient and kind, but it does not always follow.  Sometimes the elderly can become more outspoken.  There is a TV show where ex-AFL players discuss the game.  Actually it is often amusing and rarely if ever cruel, but it is called “The Grumpiest Old Men”.  Actually I suspect they have been upgraded as I think the title used to be “Grumpy Old Men”.

Paul’s love is never jealous or conceited, never rude or selfish, not touchy or resentful.  Which of us could claim that we never experience any of these emotions?

Paul’s love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins.  If we all took this seriously, perhaps half our television and newspaper material would disappear.  There is a huge and insatiable market wanting to hear of the failure of others, because as St. Augustine wrote nearly 1600 years ago about people without hope.  “The less attentive they are to their own sins, the more they pry into the sins of others.  They seek not what they can correct but what they can criticize.

To sum up we all have to confess that sometimes, perhaps often, we do not feel like loving.  Our knowledge as humans is always imperfect.  Sometimes if we knew the full story on the other side we would be less condemnatory and hostile.  One writer claimed that “love has another eye”.

But if we value love, on those occasions we shall control our instincts, perhaps count to ten and then decide to love.  Sometimes, often, but not always our feelings will follow.

As grown ups, as adults we do not want to live our life like children, driven by childish impulses.  And we need to forgive, the toughest test for Christian love, even when the perpetrators do not ask for or deserve forgiveness.  That really is Christian love.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.