A New Parameter

October 29, 2023                    30th Sunday in Ordinary Time

History has no shortage of attestations to the incredible power of love, from Christians and non-Christians alike. Victor Hugo wrote, “To love another person is to see the face of God.” Mahatma Gandhi said, “Love is the strongest force the world possesses, yet it is the humblest imaginable.” The pantheist philosopher Baruch Spinoza wrote, “Hatred is increased by being reciprocated and can on the other hand be destroyed by love.” A song by the Beatles is literally titled “All you need is love.” 

I once asked my best friend (one of our parishioners) for advice. There was a retreat I was invited to, but I was hesitant to attend. I told her the reason for my reluctance, and after giving me some very sound advice, she posed to me the question, “what if you let love instead of fear guide your decision?” So I deliberated under that premise – what if I decide out of love? And guess what? ………. I still did not attend. But! Fast-forward to a few days later: A Clergyman asked me a question which, again, I was very hesitant to answer. I thought about it over the days that followed, and once more I called to mind my best friend’s words: “what if you let love instead of fear guide your decision?” Then out of love, I emailed the Clergyman my answer. I was pleasantly surprised to find that things didn’t go south after that. I then texted my friend: “…that whole advice about ‘love instead of fear’ is a thing for me now. It’s like you’ve introduced a new parameter into my decision-making algorithm.” 

In this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus gives the Pharisees a new parameter, which we know as the two greatest commandments: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind,” and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” Now I was once having tea with this best friend whom I clearly can’t seem to stop talking about, and I asked her, “how do you deal with all those ‘dark passages’ in the Bible?” She told me that she tries as much as possible to read them through the lens of love. Did you know that St. Augustine said pretty much the same thing? De Doctrina Christiana (DDC) can be thought of as Augustine’s manual for the interpretation of Scripture. In DDC, Augustine writes:
 

Whatever there is in the word of God that cannot, when taken literally, be referred either to purity of life or soundness of doctrine, you may set down as figurative. Purity of life has reference to the love of God and one’s neighbor; soundness of doctrine to the knowledge of God and one’s neighbor. Every man, moreover, has hope in his own conscience, so far as he perceives that he has attained to the love and knowledge of God and his neighbor.

- Augustine of Hippo, DDC, Book III, Ch. 10, Art. 14 

Augustine held so firmly to the primacy of love that he took a very understanding attitude toward mistaken interpretations of Scripture if they were borne out of love:
 

Whoever takes another meaning out of Scripture than the writer intended goes astray, but not through any falsehood in Scripture. Nevertheless… if his mistaken interpretation tends to build up love, which is the end of the commandment, he goes astray in much the same way as a man who by mistake quits the high road, but yet reaches through the fields the same place to which the road leads.

- DDC, Book I, Ch. 36, Art. 41 

The good Bishop of Hippo thus assures us that, although not everyone possesses the expertise necessary for Biblical scholarship, everyone nonetheless has the capacity for love. This Sunday, our Masses will be filled with songs about love. My hope is that if you ever find yourself grappling with a tough call, perhaps you might consider my friend’s question: “What if you let love guide your decision?” 

With my love,
Carlo Serrano, Music Director