Quinquagesima Sunday
by the Revd Dr Robert Wilson PhD (Cantab), Old Roman Apostolate UK
Today marks Quinquagesima Sunday or fifty days before Easter. It is also the Sunday before Lent, which begins on Ash Wednesday. As Lent is the time when we seek to deepen the seriousness of our Christian discipleship it is important above all that we approach it in the right spirit, so it is appropriate that the epistle today is St. Paul’s great hymn to charity.
The charity of which St. Paul speaks is caritas, the love of God which is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is bestowed upon us. In Greek there were four words for love, eros- sexual love, philos- the love of friends, storge- warmth and affection. But the love of which St. Paul speaks is agape, the love of God, translated in Latin as caritas, meaning charity. In all the other three loves there is an element of self seeking or self interest, but it is not so with the love of God. “Charity is patient, is kind; charity feels no envy; charity is never perverse or proud, never insolent; does not claim its rights, cannot be provoked, does not brood over an injury; takes no pleasure at wrongdoing, but rejoices at the victory of truth; sustains, believes, hopes, endures all to the last.” God does not need to create, but does so because absolute goodness and love is by nature expansive. God did not need to create the universe, but he did so of his own volition to create, and so brought all things into being from nothing. When the human race fell and became mired in its own sinfulness and shortcomings, God came in the person of Jesus Christ to redeem them, not because we deserved it, for we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves, but because of his love and mercy.
As it is the nature of love or charity and goodness to be expansive and to create, so it is the nature of evil to contract and collapse upon itself, for evil, as St. Augustine said, is a privation of goodness, just as darkness is the absence of light. He defined sin as disordered love, and in the City of God said that “two loves have built two cities”, the city grounded on the self, in contrast to the city grounded on the love of God. For whereas we should put God first, others second and ourselves last, we tend to put ourselves first, others second and God last, for it is our fallen nature that leads us to be selfish. That is why it is better to see life as a shipwreck rather than an exam. If we see life as an exam, it is one in which we have all failed, so none of us have any occasion for pride and self seeking. Rather, life is a shipwreck in which all humanity is trapped in the same boat, but the great mercy and love of God provides us with a lifeboat to safety.
So when we approach Lent we should not see it as an exam in which we either pass or fail, but rather as a response to the love of God in the person of Jesus Christ. It is an expression of gratitude for forgiveness experienced, knowing that all are doings are worth nothing without charity, the very bond of peace and of all virtues.
This is a difficult doctrine to accept at the present time, because contemporary society encourages an attitude which is the opposite of charity. The world is divided into winners and losers, and success is defined as “playing the game”, in others words manipulating as many people as possible to enable the person to achieve success, which is defined in purely material terms. Those who are not successful in material terms are left angry and frustrated because they are excluded from the success that they see others enjoying. However, the paradox is that those who are successful in material terms are also angry and frustrated because they can never have enough and become imprisoned by what they own. They know the price of everything and the value of nothing. That is why a society that prizes material success rather than charity produces unhappiness and misery.
This false spirit of competitiveness and self seeking can invade the Church as well. If religious observance is viewed as an exam in which we pass and fail, then those who think that they have succeeded can start to trust in themselves that they are righteous and despise others. The Pharisee in the Parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector was doing the right thing for the wrong reason. He fasted, he gave alms and prayed, but he did not have charity, and so he became proud and self conceited. His prayer was about himself rather than about his own unworthiness before God. The Publican who prayed that God be merciful to him a sinner, approached God in the right spirit.
In today’s Gospel Jesus is approaching Jerusalem for the last time with his disciples, and he speaks of his forthcoming passion. He came to give life by giving his life. His messianic destiny of enthronement and rule would come about through reversal, repudiation, suffering and death. The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. This was the divine charity giving itself to atone for the sins of the world, that suffers long and is kind, that bears all things and endures all things. Confronted with a world filled with violence he did not consent to it, but took the evil upon himself and somehow subsumed it into good.
The season of Lent which is now approaching is a battle and a struggle to observe. The good news is that it is a battle that has already been fought and won on our behalf. We can use Lent to deepen our Christian discipleship in gratitude for the divine charity that offered itself on our behalf for our redemption.
Let us make our own the words of the hymn:
O Love how deep, how broad how high!
How passing thought and fantasy
That God, the Son of God should take
Our mortal form for mortals’ sake.
He sent no angel to our race
Of higher or of lower place,
But wore the form of human frame,
And he himself to this world came.
For us to wicked men betrayed,
Scourged, mocked in crown of thorns arrayed;
For us he bore the cross’s death;
For us at length gave up his breath.
For us he rose from death again,
For us he went on high to reign,
For us he sent his Spirit here
To guide, to strengthen, and to cheer.
All honour, laud and glory be,
O Jesu, Virgin born to thee,
All glory as is ever meet,
To Father and to Paraclete.
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