Homily
Sunday, August 3, 2008, 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A
Assumption Grotto Parish, Detroit
Nothing Can Conquer God’s Love for Man
The passage under consideration today:
Brothers and sisters:What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine,or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God [which is] in Christ Jesus our Lord.
As this is the Holy Year of St. Paul, I wish to focus my reflections today, and every day this year when possible, upon the verses of St. Paul which surface in the liturgy. Today we read from the eighth chapter of the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans (Rom 8:35, 37-39). First I wish to provide some context; second, enter into the principle teaching found in today’s verses; and finally, find some applications of his teachings for our life.
Theodoret informs us that St. Peter was the first to bring the Gospel to Rome, and St. John Chrysostom corroborates this. There were clearly both Jewish converts and Gentile converts composing the first Christian community there. That there were Gentiles is simply obvious: it was Rome, not Israel. We know there were Jews there, both from the fact of the Jewish Diaspora (the 8th to 6th century dispersion of the Jews into Gentile nations), but also from the more recent fact that Pompey had in 63 b.c. conquered Jerusalem, and many Jews had gone to Rome to intercede for their brethren back home, and there made converts to the faith of Israel.
It is most likely that St. Paul wrote the letter to the Romans while staying in Corinth, in February or March of the year 58 a.d. He ardently desired to visit Rome, so it may be that this letter was an attempt to prepare for his visit. He would only later arrive in Rome, but as a prisoner, and after a long sojourn, he would be decapitated by a sword. The amazingly horrendous, extensive and violent persecution of Nero would erupt six years after this letter was written.
The purpose of this letter was largely dogmatic, entering into the question of justification and faith. It has two parts, a doctrinal part, which occupies the first eleven chapters, and a practical part, which covers the last five. In the doctrinal part, St. Paul make three points: first, the necessity of justification through faith; second, the greatness and blessings of justification; and third, the providence of God regarding Israel. Today’s verses are the ending verses of that second division, a sort of climax to the meditation on the greatness and blessings of justification: “What will separate us from the love of Christ?”
For, God saved sinful man, and man entered into union with God through love, the love which is found in Jesus Christ. St. Paul here uses the word “agape,” which is one of three Greek words for love (eros and philia being the others), expressing the most elevated, selfless and perfect form of love.
This means that God loves you with the highest and most perfect form of love. No, he doesn’t just tolerate you. No, he doesn’t just put up with you. No, he doesn’t just like you. He loves you with an everlasting love (Jer 31:3), and you were both created and redeemed through Christ the Lord.
St. Paul lists many things which, according to the thoughts of this world, could separate us from this love. Some are external, some internal, some natural, some supernatural. The list he provides of the enemies of our love for God is rather impressive. But to all these things, St. Paul says that we are impervious, like a raincoat to rain, like feathers to water. All these things can attack our love for God, but never prevail by any force they contain. In failure, pain, sickness, persecution, even under the burden of ridicule or hatred, Christ himself gives us all we need to ignore all these things and stay in union with him through grace.
Curiously, there is one thing he does not list: our own wills. That is something that can separate us from the love of Christ, at least in some sense. This happens when we choose the slavery of sin over the “glorious freedom of the sons of God” (Rom 8:21). But should we shamefully choose sin, we can always recover grace by the exercise of humility, prayer, penance and the sacraments. And this shows us, that, if we can separate ourselves from our own love for Christ, still it remains true that nothing, nothing can separate even the worst sinner in this life from the love of Christ for us.
Pope Benedict, ever since last year, while he prepared and published his encyclical about hope, Spe salvi, has encouraged us to continually return to hope in God. And this can be a very useful and obvious application of these teachings for our own spiritual lives. If nothing can separate us ever, no matter what, from the love of Christ for us, then no matter what happens in our interior or exterior, we should always hope in Christ. Hope in him in your anguish. Hope in him in your distress. Hope in him in your perils, for he will never abandon you as long as life lasts. How often I have seen sinners make great progress in the spiritual life because they didn’t give up, because they knew Christ would forgive them, because the found meaning for their suffering in the Redeemer!
No one, and no suffering, no problem, no dilemma, no failure, no difficulty is greater than God, and Jesus Christ is Lord and God. Remember that the Divine Son of Mary suffered for you on the Cross, and reflect upon how not even death overcame him, for he rose from the dead. Such is the power of Christ, for which St. Paul uses the word “conquer,” when he writes, “in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us.” Let Christ the Lord be your victory in your battles, your light in your darkness, your friend in loneliness and your God when you adore. Amen.