Homily 3rd Sunday of Easter C, St. Joseph's
Fr. Paul D. Williams, Jr., Pastor
Washington D.C., as you know, is a city full of monuments. Many of them are very famous: the towering Washington monument, the noble Lincoln memorial, and the moving Vietnam memorial. But there are many monuments that are perhaps overlooked in a city so full of attractions. One you can find near East Potomac Park. It is an 18-foot statue of a half-clad male, posed on a 30-foot pedestal on which is engraved the following: “To the brave men of Titanic who gave their lives that women and children might be saved.” It was built on donations that began to be collected two weeks after the Titanic sank, when Nellie Taft, the wife of the President, gave the first dollar. And each year, on April 14th, the men of the “Washington Association of the Men of the Titanic” gather for an annual black tie affair which ends at midnight with a visit to the Titanic Men's Memorial. There, they toast those brave men who gave their lives for the principle of “Women and children first.”
I’m sure that many of you have seen the movie and become fascinated by the story of the Titanic. But the heroism of these men is truly remarkable. Though I think the movie didn’t show it well, the fact is that in the steerage class, those poor who were immigrating to America aboard the Titanic, 47 percent of the women and children were saved, as opposed to only 14 percent of the men. If you remember from the movie, access to the boat deck was difficult from the below decks of steerage, so the loss of life was high. In second class, those a little higher up, some 81 percent of the women and children survived, as opposed to only ten percent of the men. And in first class, among some of the world's wealthiest people, whom the movie depicted as somewhat arrogant and contemptuous of the poor and weak, 94 percent of the women and children were saved, while all but a handful of their men drowned in the icy black waters of the North Atlantic.
One commentator said (Richard Grenier), “To this day the most prominent humane characteristic of this great maritime tragedy is the men stepping back and letting not only their wives and daughters, but other men's wives and daughters [rich or poor], take their places in the lifeboats. It's hard to imagine this today.”
Jesus would include this principle of laying down your life for another in his definition of the greatest possible love, “No one has greater love than this, than to lay down your life for your friends.” But I think many people missed this in the movie, because the true love story in Titanic was not in the sweaty, passing romance of Jack and Rose but in those who laid down their lives for others. Jack showed his love for Rose not in the steamy courtship, the parties and dancing, or the sinful romantic interludes, but instead he showed his love for her when he ultimately gave his life for her. Perhaps that was what redeemed him.
Unfortunately, in America today, we tend to equate true love with sentiment, romance, feelings, or the passion of the moment. Now there is nothing necessarily wrong with sentiment and feelings and emotions, in fact they are the basis for the drama in one of my favorite hobbies, opera. Hearing someone like Maria Callas sing “La mamma morta” will bring tears to your eyes. But these emotions are secondary to the true essence of love. The essence of love resides in the will, not the emotions. True love is a decision, an act.
When Jesus asked Simon Peter in today’s Gospel, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter replied, “Yes Lord, you know that I love you.” Then Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.” And he repeated it three times, each time ending with an action, telling Peter to demonstrate his love by his actions, “Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep.” That is the essence of love. Love is a decision, exemplified by Christ on the Cross who freely chose to lay down his life for his sheep, and then asked Peter to do the same. True love is not the passing, heated, lustful romance that Hollywood portrays for us as an ideal today.
How then do we see true love in modern life? Not many of us will be called to literally lay down our lives for another – nowadays they make ships much better than the Titanic. But we are called to lay down our lives in other ways, on a daily basis, through sacrifice, denial of self, and service of others before our own needs. If you are looking for true love, true happiness, then look to how you can sacrifice your own desires for others. And we can do this in many ways.
You can do this in marriage, through the self-giving love of the spouses. When I meet with young couples preparing for marriage, I explain to them this ideal: that if they don’t think of themselves, but of their spouse first, then they will be truly happy. If you think only of yourself, you’ll never be satisfied because no one can ever completely live up to your expectations. But if you deny yourself and think of your spouse first and their needs, then you will find happiness. Why? Because when both spouses are doing their best to serve the other, then both end up happy. That often sounds like an impossible ideal, as I know many people struggle in marriage. But it is possible with a little humility, reconciliation, and the help of the Lord.
Outside of marriage, you can live this ideal of true love in the people you serve through whatever kind of work you have been called to do. This applies to any walk of life. Some may be called to lives of service like Mother Teresa, who helped the poorest of the poor in Calcutta. Others serve through their professions, doctors, nurses, teachers, and so on. But others may be called to more simple lives. Whatever you are called to do, as St. Therese of Lisieux taught, do it with great love, and then you will be a saint. You can meet and serve and love Christ in every person you meet.
For young people, you can live this ideal of love in faithfulness, in not giving in to the fads and fancies of the age but instead remaining faithful to the Lord, to your family, to your studies and duties, and to the plan that the Lord has for each of you when he calls you by name and says, “Follow me.”
If you want to discover true love in today’s world then start by loving Christ. Love him in your families, the people you meet, the people you serve, and then you will be able to say with Peter, “yes Lord, you know that I love you.”
