Quinquagesima Sunday (Last Epiphany) Year C.
February 18, 2007 < I Cor. 12:27-13:13

+Grant O Lord that thy word only may be spoken and thy word only received. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

"And now faith, hope and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love." Verse 13:13

I. The Last Sunday before we begin Lent- it has a special name and a tradition all its own. Quinquagesima even has Hymns all its own like the opening hymn today "Alleluia song of gladness". Number 54 in the 1940 Hymnal speaks of the "holy time coming" which is Lent, and "at the last to keep thine Easter". That holy time begins this coming Wednesday, Ash Wednesday. There will be Mass with the imposition of ashes celebrated here in your parish church at 10:30am and 7:00pm. Quinquagesima Sunday presents us with two themes to consider before we enter another sacred Lenten season. The first and most often preached on is the Gospel account today of the Transfiguration of our Lord. It is a foretaste, a prefiguring of the Resurrection just before we begin the '40 days and 40 nights' of Lent. But this year it was the second theme that drew me as I was preparing this homily. It is from the Epistle today, the 13th Chapter of St.Paul's letter to the Corinthians. This is a chapter we all know, love and have heard at many weddings and funeral. It is the song of Love itself. If you're old enough you'll remember it being read in the KJV where the word 'Charity' was used instead of 'Love'. It was changed in our modern English translations because most of us think of Charity in a very different way than the word in Latin that it comes from. To most of us 'charity' is what I give to the neediest, to help the poor get-by, a physical handout. But this is not so in its origin.

II.   "'Caritas'- the Latin word means not a hand-out or token of help. It literally means 'God's Love in Action'. Not any love, but God's Love. In the Greek language there are 3 words for our English word love. They are Eros (erotic love), Philo (brotherly love, Philadelphia is the city of brotherly love), and Agape (God's Love). Today's Epistle is not about the first two, not about love you can find in and from this world. It is about Agape, love you can only get from God. It is not in us as human beings, it comes from outside ourselves, from God. If you want this love, you'll be in Church every Sunday. If you want this love you will know and obey the 10 Commandments Moses receives and delivers to the Israelites in today's first reading. If you want this love you will look at Lent in a whole new way, with eyes opened to new possibilities and encounters with God. You will find 'Caritas', not just 'L-U-V'.

III. But how about some concrete examples of this love. Well I go back a ways to my childhood in the 1950's and 60's, when it was not uncommon for a neighbor to knock on your door and ask to borrow a cup of sugar, some coffee, flour or a few eggs to bake with. One such time I asked my mother when the "Jones-es" would be repaying us for what I thought was far too many times they had borrowed from us. What my mother told me has stuck with me all my life. She said: "Neighbors never OWE each other, they HELP each other. That is to say they don't keep tabs- 'You borrowed 2 gallons of gas for your lawnmower last summer, which equals the 2 cups of sugar and half a dozen eggs we borrowed from you.' That would be a business transaction, not a neighborly act. But it may be that such neighborliness rarely exists today, which is sad. For it is exactly what St. Paul is describing in His great chapter on Love.

IV.  But there is one place that this neighborliness still must exist: in God's family the Church. For the Church itself is a work of Caritas, God's Love in Action. It may not be that it is a Charity like Food Pantries or other not-for-profits that aid the poor and needy, for God's Love in Action isn't always and only about giving us what we WANT. It is always about God giving us just what we NEED. And that brings us back to Lent. We may not want to enter it or to sacrifice our time and energy to keep it. It may be inconvenient for our modern lives, but God's Church knows we NEED it. It is the only charitable thing she can do for our souls. It is exactly what we need to do before we celebrate again the Lord of Life's physical Resurrection at Easter.
So I suggest to you this day a focus on Caritas this Lent. That is a time we look at how we treat each other as neighbors. Begin here in your own parish church. Have no one you hate, no one you wouldn't show God Love in Action to.
It may be hard to do, it is a discipline. You may not WANT to do it. But you NEED to, and so do I! Jesus calls us to live such extra-ordinary lives as Agape: moral like the 10 Commandments and Charitable like the Song of Love in the 13th Chapter of his letter to the Corinthians.

"And now faith, hope and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love." Verse 13:13.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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