The two detachments and the one love

A recording of today's gospel and reflection can be found here.

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Today’s gospel (Matthew 10: 16-23) sees Jesus in his role as Teacher or Prophet, the one who comes not only to rule as King, not only to sanctify as Priest, but also to guide and direct, to advise and enlighten, a mission that is complemented by the work of His Holy Spirit. The paradoxes come thick and fast: be wise as serpents but innocent as doves; beware of men, a paradox for Jesus has promised to make the disciples fishers of men, and how can one beware of what one is to fish? And then, those who love us best may despise us most. The prophecy of rejection must have been a shock to the disciples for their naïve Judaic imaginations probably envisaged the triumphant procession of the servants of the Messiah, whereas the Messiah among them prophesied that they would be as abject and unwelcome as Himself. This then is a cold comfort gospel for our contemplation, or is it? Only if we refuse the journeys which Jesus here bids that we take; only if we hear and hear but fail to listen to listen to the melody that underlies it.

Simply put, this gospel calls us into harmony with two detachments: detachment from the self and detachment from others. Why must we be so detached? Are we only meant to be as cold as fish, we Christians? Not at all! Rather, the cause for both detachments is so that neither our love of self nor our love of others impede and stifle our love of God. In fact, we might go as far as to say that only those who do love God, who live in His love, who know themselves and others as beloved of the Father, and who reciprocate that love by His grace and His gift, can know what it is to love themselves wisely, and to love their neighbour as He has loved them.

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will lead you to the complete truth, and he will remind you of all that I have said to you,

declares today’s Gospel Acclamation. That is the foundation of the love I have just evoked. That love is the complete truth: the truth about God, and the truth which we are called to live and to share with others.

And, then, we come to the impediments, the blockages, that hold us back or prevent our progress. But we cannot see them. Lost on the foggy moor of our own mind, we need adversity to bring us to an awareness of what it is we lack.

When they hand you over, do not worry about how to speak.

Why not? Because Christ has us and holds us, even when, perhaps most especially when, we feel most isolated and alone, even in our Garden of Gethsemane moments. What must it be to live those moments not overwhelmed by our own incapacities, but resting in Him who has promised us a kingdom?

Do not worry about how to speak or what to say.

But we worry incessantly, Lord, because we have not yet lost trust in ourselves. We say it is because we do not know what to say, or that there is nothing to say, or that nothing can be said. How often do we feel such things in the maelstrom of absurdity that is the twenty-first century? But our problem will ever be the same: we have been trusting in ourselves too much and not trusting enough in Him. We have taken the obligation to prudence and imagined it was the same as Wisdom. But Wisdom is a higher thing; it is not a human calculation but a divine insight that somehow makes sense; that makes sense because it is the fruit of His love, not of our mistaken self-belief.

But there is another detachment which still remains to come about: detachment from others. Jesus warns us that all our securities may yet be torn from us by the fallibility of men:

Brother will betray brother to death…children will rise against their parents…You will be hated by all men on account of my name.

Here again, the logic is similar to the logic of the detachment from self. We must not be detached because we are cold; rather, we must be detached so that our hearts can burn with the true fuel of love which is the will of the Father. We long for communion, but we too readily forget that our baptism calls us to root all communion in the Communion of Love that is the Blessed Trinity. So, fundamental is this to us that this Communion is now to be preferred to all other communions; indeed, it is so fundamental to all communions that every communion not rooted in their Divine Communion is a mere illusion. The whole world could be united, living side by side in a most perfect harmony of sentiment, but if that sentiment were the love of this world’s promises, or the neglect of God, what harmony could it truly offer?

Peace is not peace unless it is first rooted in God’s peace which comes through forgiveness of sins. Concord is only fake concord unless it is rooted first in the reconciliation of the wayward children with their Father in heaven.

And this is why the man who stands firm to the end will be saved: not because stoicism and endurance are the source of our salvation, but because the raging love of God is. And when we love God truly above all things, and trust only in Him, then our love of self and love of our neighbour become what they are meant to be: an imitation of, and participation in, the unceasing and ever flowing love of the Most High.