Love and do what you will

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

The slogan, “Love and do what you will” seems more suited on the lips of a libertine than on a saint. We can understand why a libertine would promote this since he is devoid of moral principles except perhaps the most basic moral principle of not doing harm to anyone. In fact, Nike could have even reframed and rebranded the slogan in the form of its famous tagline: “Just Do It.”

Most of you may be surprised and shocked to know that these words were indeed spoken by a saint, and not just any ordinary saint. It is none other than the great Doctor of the West, St Augustine, who wrote extensively on original sin and the necessity of grace for one’s justification. Why would such a great theologian, regarded as only second to St Paul, make such an irresponsible statement that could serve as a license for future generations to “just do it”, seemingly regardless of moral bearings and eternal consequences?

Well, these words would have been irresponsible if St Augustine is saying that as long as you love God, you can go ahead and do pretty much anything you want to, even something sinful, and it’s perfectly okay. Sounds very much like the tagline for advocates of same-sex marriage and other sexual aberrations – “love is love.” But thank God, this is not what Augustine meant. Because of our sinful and fallen nature and without the aid of grace, we can’t “just do it.” That is why the Incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus are essential, if anyone is to have eternal life. Only if we love completely as our Lord has commanded us to do in today’s gospel, then whatever it pleases you to do will be the correct thing to do.

In explaining his point, St Augustine gives several illustrations to highlight two issues which may lead many to confuse genuine love with a self-serving attitude. Firstly, people tend to be easily misled by appearances. Coddling a child may give the impression that you are loving but it could just be a selfish way of winning the child’s confidence and approval. On the other hand, punishing or admonishing a child may seem harsh and unloving but this could actually be an act of loving discipline, hoping that the child will amend his ways. How would we know which is which? St Augustine tells us to look at the motivation. Our actions need to be motivated by love. St Augustine tells us that we can love and do what we will because true love desires only the good of the beloved. Love goes so much farther than simply not hurting anyone. This is often the excuse used to justify sexual sins. “What’s wrong with masturbation or pornography? I’m not hurting anyone?” No, love seeks good. The good of the other and our good too. And all sin continue to hurt God and ourselves, if not others.

St Augustine’s maxim helps us to see how the two parts of the Great Commandment of Love are inseparable. The moment we attempt to separate them and to favour one over the other, the whole thing falls apart.

Loving God is the foundation of the very possibility of loving anyone else for the simple reason that, only in the relationship with God can we feel fundamentally loved. Only in the relationship with God can we feel truly forgiven despite our fragility and offer forgiveness to others. We can only generate love if we feel truly acknowledged in this relationship that is rooted in the deepest depths of our hearts. Many people are unable to love because they are not willing to undergo the deep experience of recognising that they are sinners and yet loved undeservedly. If someone feels unloved because he feels that he is undeserving of love, he will likewise be unable to love others whom he thinks is undeserving of his love.

If you love God first and love Him truly and completely, then you will only desire that which is pleasing to Him, you will desire to follow His commandments. To profess that you love God while going against His Will and His Laws will immediately expose you as a liar and a hypocrite. One can never claim to love God while one persists in sinning. St Augustine doesn’t give us a license to do as we want, but a reason to do what God wants - that reason is love.

Our Lord has freed us from the bonds of sin and death. But that freedom is not a license to do as we please. Being free to choose sin is not true freedom. In fact, we can freely choose to enslave ourselves once more to sin. St Paul therefore warns us, “Do not use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, serve one another through love” (Gal 5:13).

It follows that the commandment to love our neighbour must first recognise that human life will not work out if God is left out: its aspirations are nothing but contradiction. Nothing can be considered good if there is no ultimate basis for all good. Nothing can be considered true if there is no Absolute Truth which is ageless and always true, and not just true for a certain time and for a certain people. How could we possibly grow in love if there is no ultimate benchmark for love?

Loving our neighbour, especially the poor, the weak, and the marginalised can never just be a dictate of justice. Loving others without rooting it in the love of God eventually ends in a pale surrogate of love, a distortion of true love. This is why the love that our Lord speaks of is not a mere human love. Only if we are anchored in the primary relationship with God can we begin to love others in a wholesome and unselfish way. Without such connexion, our weak attempts at loving end up following the idols of egoism, of power, of dominion, polluting our relations with others, and following paths not of life, but of death.

If we lose sight of God, then all that remains as a guiding thread is nothing but our ego. We will try to grab as much as possible out of this life for ourselves. We will say that we are motivated by altruistic values or even love, but the truth is that we are in it for ourselves. We will see all the others as enemies of our happiness who threaten to take something away from us. Envy and greed will take over our lives and poison our world.

For this reason, it is critically important to remember that only if this fundamental relationship with God is right, then can all other relationships be right. Our whole lives should be driven by this motivation to practice thinking with God, feeling with God, willing with God, so that love may grow and become the keynote of our life. Only then can love of neighbour be self-evident. Only if we love as how God loves, can we “do what you will!”