A Homily for the Second Sunday after Pentecost

​+ Filioli mei, non diligamus verbo, neque lingua, sed opera, et veritate. “Little children, let us not love in word or speech but in deed and in truth.”
 
This instruction of Saint John addressed to each one of us by Our Lord Jesus Christ through the Church’s Sacred Liturgy this morning is succinct and clear: don’t talk about it; do it! Words are cheap. Actions count.
 
For we live in a world inundated by an unceasing flow words—words that communicate information whether we need it or not; words that seek to entice us towards purchasing this particular product or service; words that promise us almost anything if we will give our political support to a given group; words that rush to fill the void through various forms of entertainment and distraction lest silence befall us; words that flow from our own lips in vain attempts to impress and control others.
 
The Church is by no means immune: meetings, processes, documents and discourses—even brutal political campaigns—surface all too often and seem to be ends in themselves whilst the fundamental duties of the conversion of our lives, the worship of Almighty God and the evangelisation of the world are singularly neglected. It almost seems as if the Church—much like a teenager waiting for a bus or a train—cannot bear the possibility of silence: there must be words, there must be noise to fill the void.
 
Monks and monasteries are not immune from this temptation. Saint Benedict finds it necessary to teach his monks (Rule, ch. 6) that: “If we ought at times to refrain from good words for the sake of silence, how much more ought we to abandon evil talk because of the penalties of sin,” adding rather curtly: “In much speaking thou shalt not escape sin.” (Prov. 10:19)
 
When words reign and noise abound in our monasteries, in our churches, in our homes, when we are travelling—when we are doing anything at all!—how can we possibly hear “the still, small voice” of the Lord? (cf. 1 Kings 19:12) How can we know how truly to act, rather than simply to re-act to the stimuli around us? How can we avoid being swept up and carried along by the all-too-comforting seduction of what we are told is “popular opinion” or “current thinking”?
 
“Let us not love in word or speech but in deed and in truth,” Saint John teaches us. What in fact am I to do? How can I know that what I do is according to the truth?
 
The first thing we must do is to be silent. Me, my opinions, my desires, my plans, my preferences, my will, must all be calmed and quietened. The various sounds that continually surround me must be filtered out. The entertainments and distractions to which I am addicted must be jettisoned. Somehow I must escape the dictatorship of noise and (re)discover the peaceful reign of silence.
 
Then we must listen. We must listen to the Truth, to the Word of God incarnate, to He who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. And we must listen precisely as the “little children” of whom Saint John speaks—for we have much to learn. We must listen to all that He teaches us through His continuing activity today, here in the Sacred Liturgy of His Church. We must carefully attend to the perennial teaching of His Church, our diligent mother, whose wisdom and experience over the centuries is handed on to us in Tradition.
 
My brothers and sisters, if we are to love God and our neighbour in deed and in truth, whatever our particular vocation, we must needs find that silence in which we can hear the Word of God. All those invited to the great feast spoken of in the Gospel of this Holy Mass were busy, too busy, with their own affairs to accept. And in the end they were excluded. The eschatological implications of this parable are clear: we must accept the Lord’s invitation, His call, when it comes, now, today. We must not delay, least we find ourselves excluded from His eternal feast.
 
For the Lord calls us, each according to the circumstances in which His Providence has placed us, not to love in word or speech, but in deed and in truth. As we approach His altar this morning, let us beg Him for the grace of the necessary silence and docility in our hearts, minds and souls so to do today and each day, that we might rejoice in His unending feast, a foretaste of which we now celebrate. +