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Have We Forgotten Our First Love?

Reading Scripture this morning, I came across this passage from Revelation 2:1-5 (NABRE).

The one who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks in the midst of the seven gold lampstands says this: I know your works, your labor, and your endurance, and that you cannot tolerate the wicked; you have tested those who call themselves apostles but are not, and discovered that they are impostors. Moreover, you have endurance and have suffered for my name, and you have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: you have lost the love you had at first. Realize how far you have fallen. Repent, and do the works you did at first. Otherwise, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.

The reason this stood out for me this time through the New Testament was how it might tie in to the infighting going on in the Church at this time. With all the focus on the policies of the Church and which faction they benefit, it seems to me that we are in danger of losing our first love of Christ that should be our motivation in dealing with others. Our Lord didn’t give us a church. He gave us The Church under the headship of Peter and his successors. In defending the Church, some treat it as an institution that we either favor if we agree with it, or get angry with if we disagree with it.

But if the Church is God’s gift to us to be the visible means of carrying out His mission, then reducing our participation to fighting over what we want the Church to be is forgetting our first love of God. That doesn’t mean we keep silent when there is a problem in the Church. But it does mean we need to handle these problems in light of our love for God and His for us.

Do we believe that God established what we know of as Christianity? Then let us live it out of love for Him, not as a collection of bylaws for membership. Do we believe that the Catholic Church is the Church Christ created and continues to protect? Then let us handle our affairs in the Church out of love for The Lord who built it on the rock of Peter, giving all due obedience out of love, not out of reluctance or legalism. If we make known our needs (see canon 212 §3), then let us do so out of love of God and each other as the Greatest Commandment (cf. Matthew 22:36-40) was formulated, and not “The Pope/Cardinal/Bishop/Priest is a jerk and a moron!”

It’s unfortunate that the different factions in the Church seem to think the Greatest Commandments is suspended when dealing with those we think are wrong. For example, I’m unhappy with the anti-Francis attitude in the Church. But I have to constantly remind myself that my dislike for their behavior does not merit treating them contemptuously†. Those who dislike the Pope, or those who dislike the “dubia cardinals” and other critics (along with all other factions out there) should remember that treating these people as enemies goes against the One who must be our first love.

Yes, sin is wrong and must be opposed. But we cannot treat sinners as those to be despised. That was the attitude of the Pharisee that our Lord condemned. Jesus taught, “For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you” (Matthew 7:2). We need to remember that if we love Jesus, we will keep His commandments (cf. John 14:15). That means we must look at ourselves and see how we have transgressed. But love and mercy (even when correcting) is part of His commandments. 

No, loving the sinner does not mean calling the sin good. But too many think it does. Both the “conservative” and “liberal” Catholics think the Church calling for moral laxity when it calls for mercy. They merely differ over whether they think it is good or not. But both are wrong. The sins we tolerate—disguising our partisanship as mercy for the sinner—are wrong just as wrong in the eyes of God as the ones we abhor (and show no mercy for the sinner).

So, to regain our First Love that we have lost like the Ephesians, we need to start acting out of love for God and our neighbor and not limiting our compassion to our allies and treating our enemies with evil. 

 

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(†) One year for Lent, I gave up using sarcasm in my replies on social media. You might think that’s ridiculous (and maybe it is), but it definitely left me thinking about the charity and tone of what I said. It also changed my views of them. The further I go back in my blog history, the more cringeworthy some of my comments seem. So, what I write in this post has a particular relevance to my personal life.

Deafening Our Conscience Through Outrage

Everyone notices the wrongdoing done by other people. We see something that seems unjust and we are outraged. We demand instantaneous retraction and until that is done, the one we see as guilty loses all rights to being treated as a human person. If that person is a member of the clergy, he is treated as if he forfeits all rights to the respect and submission due his office.

Meanwhile, more often than not, people refuse to consider their own wrongdoing as anything worth considering. Refusing obedience to the Church because their teachings and actions do not mesh with one’s own beliefs is not recognized as disobedience. Instead it’s treated as “standing up against evil,” where everyone imagines they are a miniature St. Paul, withstanding an erring Peter to his face.

The problem is, we are not like St. Paul. We’re more like the Pharisee who treats the sinner—or the one we think is sinning—as beneath contempt while thinking we’re superior because we don’t sin... or, if we do, at least we don’t sin as badly as them.

That’s a dangerous attitude. It shows we’ve forgotten or ignored our own guilt. As long as we aren’t as bad (in our own eyes) as them, we’re the good ones, the wise ones. That’s a dangerous attitude because it shows we we have become deaf to our conscience. As Benedict XVI put it:

“The Pharisee is no longer aware that he too is guilty. He is perfectly at ease with his own conscience. But this silence of his conscience makes it impossible for God and men to penetrate his carapace—whereas the cry of conscience that torments the tax collector opens him to receive truth and love. Jesus can work effectively among sinners because they have not become inaccessible behind the screen of an erring conscience, which would put them out of reach of the changes that God awaits from them—and from us. Jesus cannot work effectively among the righteous because they sense no need for forgiveness and repentance; their conscience no longer accuses them but only justifies them.”

—Values in a Time of Upheaval, p. 82

When we are deaf to conscience, we justify the evil we do, saying it’s not as bad as the evil they do, therefore it’s unimportant. We protest, asking “Why does the Church focus on us when those people are doing worse? What we forget is that the deadliest sin for an individual is the one that sends that individual to hell. 

So you don’t support abortion? Congratulations. You’ve none nothing more than demanded of you. But if you’re committing other sins while refusing to acknowledge and repent of them, you might be no better off in the eyes of God—even if the magnitude of your sins are objectively less.

Our Lord shocked the Pharisees when He said, “Amen, I say to you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you.” [Matthew 21:31 (NABRE)]. If He wanted to shock us equally today, He might say, “the pro-abortion politicians and cowardly bishops” (to name two popular targets of revulsion). If they repent but we do not, then they are in the same situation as the tax collectors [§] while we are in the same situation as the Pharisees. This doesn’t mean, “treat sins as unimportant.” It means “don’t exalt yourself just because you haven’t done that.” 

Or, as St. John Chrysostom, (Homily III on 2 Timothy), discusses on our focus on the great sins of others:

“Let each therefore, with an upright conscience, entering into a review of what he has done, and bringing his whole life before him, consider, whether he is not deserving of chastisements and punishments without number? And when he is indignant that some one, who has been guilty of many bad actions, escapes with impunity; let him consider his own faults, and his indignation will cease. For those crimes appear great, because they are in great and notorious matters; but if he will enquire into his own, he will perhaps find them more numerous.”

So, when we see sin in the Church—especially when it seems to go unnoticed—it’s not wrong to want justice and reform. But it is wrong to play the Pharisee, using the sins of others to justify ourselves. We might be risking our souls by using another’s sins as an excuse to ignore our own wrongdoing.

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[§] To put it in historical context: Tax collectors (publicani) of the Roman Empire were not the equivalent of the modern IRS. Their greed and corruption ruined and destabilized entire provinces.