Fr. JC Maximilian

I hope that this does not come as too much of a surprise to any of you, but I am not an expert on honeymoons. I have never been on one, and it is not likely I will be on one. What I know of honeymoons largely comes from listening to family and friends speak of theirs. I have started to draw some general conclusions about honeymoons from what I have heard. First, generally people go to someplace special and nice for their honeymoons. My one sister and her husband went to Ireland, and my other sister and her husband went to San Diego and Disneyland. Hawaii, the Caribbean, Mexico, even the Poconos, seem to be other popular honeymoon spots.

Another thing about honeymoons that I have picked up is that they are times of special passion between the husband and wife. Because of some of the young ears in the congregation, we really cannot go into details about that, but especially for those who have followed the Church’s teaching on chastity before marriage, the honeymoon is a time when the intimacy between husband and wife is deepened in a most profound and spiritual way as the two become one as we hear in Sacred Scripture.

By this time you are probably wondering why I have been talking about honeymoons. Well, in today’s first reading, from the Book of the Prophet Hosea, we hear God calling His bride, Israel, to go on a second honeymoon with Him. The Book of Hosea is one of my favorites in the Old Testament. The prophet was called to live the prophecy he was entrusted to proclaim in a very personal way. God wanted to call His people to repentance from their infidelity to the Covenant that He had made with them, and to drive His point home He told Hosea to marry a prostitute. Hosea’s constant, faithful love of his wife who was frequently unfaithful to him, was a living sign of God’s constant, faithful love for His people despite their frequent infidelity to Him by turning to idols and embracing sin. God, in His deep love for His people, was calling them to return to where they had honeymooned with Him. It was not someplace glamorous, though it certainly had plenty of sun. We hear in today’s first reading God say to Israel, “I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart.”

That’s right, the place where God and Israel honeymooned was the desert; not the place most of us would rank high on our places to go to on a honeymoon. Instead of the dry, lifeless place that most of us typically imagine a desert to be, Israel’s 40 years in the desert was seen as the time when Israel’s relationship with God was at its best. Instead of being lifeless, because of its total reliance on God to lead and care for them, Israel was filled with God’s life of love. And yes, it was a most passionate love.

Many people feel a little uncomfortable when they hear that God loves them passionately, for passionate love is what the Greeks called eros. For many Christians, they are more comfortable thinking of God’s love as agape or sacrificing, charitable love. Eros is seen as being tied more to passion, ecstasy, and the body, whereas Agape seen as more noble, charitable, and having to do with the spirit.

In his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, God is Love, Pope Benedict XVI makes clear that this is a false polarity. Many anti-Christian writers down through the centuries have accused Christianity of rejecting or poisoning Eros. Rather His Holiness concludes that Christianity unites Eros and Agape. Due to Original Sin, all of our passions, all of creation, has become disordered. Sometimes they become directed at the wrong end, or we want too much of them. Pope Benedict writes, “Evidently, Eros needs to be disciplined and purified if it is to be provided not just fleeting pleasure, but a certain foretaste of the pinnacle of our existence, of that beatitude for which our whole being yearns” (Deus Caritas Est #4). Agape purifies and disciplines Eros by turning it away from love of self and towards love of the other. Instead of being imprisoned in a “closed inward-looking self,” love liberates the human heart through self-giving.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). In today’s Gospel Jesus clearly identifies Himself as the Bridegroom. As the Bridegroom, Jesus calls His bride, the Church, to come into the desert with Him, to honeymoon with Him. We see in the person of Jesus the perfect purification, discipline and unity of both Eros and Agape. God, who is love, comes to us, inviting us to the most intimate, profound relationship with Him.

How are we to respond to this infinite and intimate love that God pours upon us? Today’s Responsorial Psalm tells us how we are to respond to God’s compassionate and merciful love: “Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all my being, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits” (Psalm 103:1-2). Saint John of the Cross writes, “Lord, you want the fire of our love to burn until we are set alight, until all that we are is consumed in its flame, so that we become transformed into you, our God. You blow upon that flame with the graces which your life has won for us, and you enkindle it with the death you endured for us” (St. John of the Cross, Audi filia, #69).

This week we begin the holy season of Lent. It is our annual invitation to allow God to lead us into the desert so that we can honeymoon with Him. During Lent we are called to simplify our lives so that we can learn to rely more fully on God. The fasting that we do during Lent is a physical reminder for us of the need to discipline our Eros so that we come to know the freedom of love that being a child of God brings. While each of us, hopefully after prayerful discernment, will decide on what we will “do” for Lent so as to repent from our sins and more fully embrace God’s love, I would like to recommend one thing for your spiritual reading. Pick up a copy of Pope Benedict’s encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, and read it. There might be parts of it that may be difficult to read, but as any married couple will tell you, sometimes love takes patience and effort. As we enter the desert of Lent, may we truly encounter God who is Love, and our love for God burn with the flame of the Holy Spirit.