Love Stories
On this Memorial of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, I preached the homily for the School Mass at the Saint Thomas Aquinas Chapel of the Saint Meinrad School of Theology. More than half of the community had already left for the Thanksgiving break, so it was a much slimmer crowd than usual. These were the readings for the day: Rev 3:1-6, 14-22; Ps 15:2-3a, 3bc-4ab, 5; Lk 19:1-10.
If chick flicks and romance novels are to be believed, all love stories basically fall into two categories: stories of love at first sight, and stories of love in hindsight.
Stories of love at first sight—we’re all familiar with how that plot goes. A man and a woman, strangers to one another, find themselves in the midst of a crowd. And then, there is that moment—when one sees the other across the crowded room, or she bumps into him, or he helps her pick up her books that have fallen on the floor—that one moment when their eyes meet, when one soul finally finds its mate, when both are bitten by the love bug and are overcome by a fever for which no doctor has a cure. Yup, that’s love at first sight.
Stories of love in hindsight, on the other hand, do not involve those sorts of fireworks. They are stories of the boy and the girl next door, of childhood friends and playmates that have always been there for each other. The story ends with both of them realizing that their one true love has always been their first love: one another. That’s love in hindsight for you.
Love stories: they’re either about love at first sight or love in hindsight. And experience tells us that our vocation stories are no different. Let’s face it: vocation stories are love stories; they tell of how we got to where we are now: deeply in love with Christ. And because vocation stories are love stories, they also fall into the same two categories: stories of love at first sight, and stories of love in hindsight.
Stories of love at first sight are those stories of conversion, stories of former sinners who reformed their ways when they finally encountered Christ in their lives. Stories like that of Zacchaeus, Jericho’s own corrupt tax-collector. He was a short gawker who climbed up a sycamore tree to get a better view of the celebrity passing by. Yet, Jesus looked up at that gawker and looked him in the eye. For Zacchaeus, it was love at first sight; it was love for Love Himself at first sight. Zacchaeus was not bitten by any love bug yet he caught a feverish zeal for the Lord, turned his back on his life of sin, and followed Jesus. And so it is for some of us here today: there was that one moment when God touched us and we followed Him and we never looked back. And it’s all because we fell in love with Christ at first sight.
For the rest of us, it was love in hindsight. It’s about a lifetime of being in Church, going to Church, doing Churchy things. God always has been there for us, waiting for us to keep saying yes at every turn. It’s a story not unlike that of the Blessed Virgin Mary whose life was dedicated to the service of the Lord from the very beginning. Today, we celebrate the memorial of her Presentation in the Temple. She was then but a girl of three. Little did she know that as she climbed up those 15 steps to the Temple, she was already taking the first steps of a journey that would find her climbing up a hill called Calvary. Hers was a lifetime of saying fiat at every turn, not just at the Annunciation. It’s no different from the stories of some of us who kept on saying yes to God at every turn, culminating in entering seminary or a religious order or perhaps deciding to raise a family. Ours is a story of God’s immense love that only makes perfect sense in hindsight.
And now we find ourselves here in this chapel, gathered around the table of the Lord: those who loved Him at first sight and those who loved Him in hindsight. Here we are at the banquet of His love to receive His Body and Blood, the gift of His love and the sustenance of our lives. Yet, even as He calls us to this table, so also He sends us forth from this table to be His instruments in the world, so that others out there might also fall in love with Him. He sends us forth to witness by our words and works, by our very lives, so that those who have yet to meet Him might come to know Him and be touched by Him and fall in love with Him at first sight. He sends us forth to nurture those who already know Him and serve Him so that when they are called to say yes again and again to His call, they will realize also His constant love in hindsight.
So shall it be until the end of days when finally all our love stories will find their one happy ending, when all of us, lovers of the God who first loved us, will delight in the blessed sight of Life eternal, of Joy eternal, of Love eternal.
If chick flicks and romance novels are to be believed, all love stories basically fall into two categories: stories of love at first sight, and stories of love in hindsight.
Stories of love at first sight—we’re all familiar with how that plot goes. A man and a woman, strangers to one another, find themselves in the midst of a crowd. And then, there is that moment—when one sees the other across the crowded room, or she bumps into him, or he helps her pick up her books that have fallen on the floor—that one moment when their eyes meet, when one soul finally finds its mate, when both are bitten by the love bug and are overcome by a fever for which no doctor has a cure. Yup, that’s love at first sight.
Stories of love in hindsight, on the other hand, do not involve those sorts of fireworks. They are stories of the boy and the girl next door, of childhood friends and playmates that have always been there for each other. The story ends with both of them realizing that their one true love has always been their first love: one another. That’s love in hindsight for you.
Love stories: they’re either about love at first sight or love in hindsight. And experience tells us that our vocation stories are no different. Let’s face it: vocation stories are love stories; they tell of how we got to where we are now: deeply in love with Christ. And because vocation stories are love stories, they also fall into the same two categories: stories of love at first sight, and stories of love in hindsight.
Stories of love at first sight are those stories of conversion, stories of former sinners who reformed their ways when they finally encountered Christ in their lives. Stories like that of Zacchaeus, Jericho’s own corrupt tax-collector. He was a short gawker who climbed up a sycamore tree to get a better view of the celebrity passing by. Yet, Jesus looked up at that gawker and looked him in the eye. For Zacchaeus, it was love at first sight; it was love for Love Himself at first sight. Zacchaeus was not bitten by any love bug yet he caught a feverish zeal for the Lord, turned his back on his life of sin, and followed Jesus. And so it is for some of us here today: there was that one moment when God touched us and we followed Him and we never looked back. And it’s all because we fell in love with Christ at first sight.
For the rest of us, it was love in hindsight. It’s about a lifetime of being in Church, going to Church, doing Churchy things. God always has been there for us, waiting for us to keep saying yes at every turn. It’s a story not unlike that of the Blessed Virgin Mary whose life was dedicated to the service of the Lord from the very beginning. Today, we celebrate the memorial of her Presentation in the Temple. She was then but a girl of three. Little did she know that as she climbed up those 15 steps to the Temple, she was already taking the first steps of a journey that would find her climbing up a hill called Calvary. Hers was a lifetime of saying fiat at every turn, not just at the Annunciation. It’s no different from the stories of some of us who kept on saying yes to God at every turn, culminating in entering seminary or a religious order or perhaps deciding to raise a family. Ours is a story of God’s immense love that only makes perfect sense in hindsight.
And now we find ourselves here in this chapel, gathered around the table of the Lord: those who loved Him at first sight and those who loved Him in hindsight. Here we are at the banquet of His love to receive His Body and Blood, the gift of His love and the sustenance of our lives. Yet, even as He calls us to this table, so also He sends us forth from this table to be His instruments in the world, so that others out there might also fall in love with Him. He sends us forth to witness by our words and works, by our very lives, so that those who have yet to meet Him might come to know Him and be touched by Him and fall in love with Him at first sight. He sends us forth to nurture those who already know Him and serve Him so that when they are called to say yes again and again to His call, they will realize also His constant love in hindsight.
So shall it be until the end of days when finally all our love stories will find their one happy ending, when all of us, lovers of the God who first loved us, will delight in the blessed sight of Life eternal, of Joy eternal, of Love eternal.
posted by Fr. Noel at 11/21/2006 02:42:00 PM
1 Comments:
Nice. :)
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