Appeals to Love

I've been thinking about something that was said at School of Community on Thursday. I can't reconstruct the context well, unfortunately, but the discussion regarded freedom and those who "create extra rules for being Catholic." Now, this post springs more from my subsequent thoughts than our discussion at the time, but we all generally agreed, of course, that we are not to be like Pharisees, tying up extra burdens on each other's backs.

This discussion has stuck with me, and I feel it requires a balancing, at least to keep me safe. It is a fact that the Church "requires" very little of us, and most practicing Catholics regularly go beyond what is strictly required (by receiving Holy Communion more than once a year, for example). I have been straining my memory to come up with a time when I was told, point blank, that such and such is a rule we must follow to truly be a Catholic. Maybe I'm too much of a literalist, but I can't come up with one.

What I have heard lots of is appeals to my love. "Please, show your love for Jesus by x." "Please show your love of the Eucharist by y." "Your Mother loves you so much. Please offer her q."

Perhaps these are far more difficult for us to process than "rules." We who love God want to love God with all our hearts. But appeals, somehow, can make us feel that someone loves my Beloved better than I do, and so I begin comparing. I begin to get insecure in my relationship with my Beloved, worrying that maybe I'm not so dear because I'm not like the other person. Or, I look down on the other person and find a reason to negatively label him or her. I think it was Keith Green who said that "a fanatic" is anyone who shows me he loves more than I do!

But St. Paul appeals to our love, too. "Run in such a way as to get the prize" (1 Cor. 9:24). So, am I going to say to St. Paul, "Wait a second there, St. Paul. The Church tells me I only have to x, y, z, and running so as to get the prize is not on that list. Stop impinging on my freedom." Of course not.

What is missing in this silly analysis, I think, is that love can be the only motivator in the Christian life. We can't make laws for ourselves out of other Christians' behavior. Again, St. Paul speaks of this in Galatians, where he says the law serves only until the arrival of Jesus into history: the crucial Event. Through Christ, through encountering Him, through hearing His call, and responding in faith by the Holy Spirit, we call out Abba, Father. The relationship we have with God is transformed by the presence of Christ in our lives. Then, St. Paul tells us, it is for freedom that we are set free. He goes so far as to say that the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

So, it is purity of love that we need. If someone proposes a devotion or practice, let's hear their love. Is their love pure? Probably not. But you know what? That's not my problem! I have enough impurities of my own, and I need to be concerned about how I inflict them on others. My problem is, am I open to hearing my Beloved appeal to my heart through them? Am I open loving them and accepting them (and bowing my will always and only to the Holy Spirit)? Can I admire their spiritual path, and know that there are many different colors in a single stained glass window (again I have Keith Green on the brain).

I need people to appeal to my love through all sorts of means, and many times a day. Otherwise I quickly turn cold and blue.