IT IS LOVE THAT I DESIRE, NOT SACRIFICE

IT IS LOVE THAT I DESIRE, NOT SACRIFICE,

AND KNOWLEDGE OF GOD RATHER THAN BURNT OFFERINGS

This is today’s message the prophet Hosea (Hos 6, 1-6).

When Matthew wrote about his call to discipleship and about the feast in which many tax-collectors and sinners were sitting at table with Jesus and his disciples, the evangelist remembers the reproach with which Jesus faced the ever present Pharisees: “Go and learn what this means” he said, “ ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” (Mt 9:13) Matthew remembers also the day when the disciples were hungry and started to pluck heads of grain to eat. The Pharisees interfered and told the Lord: “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath”. Jesus answered them:  “If you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless”. (Mt 12, 7) Wasn’t Jesus right to call them whitewashed tombs? (Mt 23, 27).

Luke, today, tells us the story of the Pharisee and the tax-collector. The Pharisee spoke this prayer to himself: “‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity — greedy, dishonest, adulterous — or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.’” Was he praying? He was advertising himself!  Without realizing it he was saying that God was indebted to him!

The tax-collector “would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’” This prayer is short and to the point coming from somebody who knew he was a sinner and knew that God is merciful. It is a real prayer.

Of the two men, who knew God? Who loved him more? The Tax-collector did? He addressed God trusting in his mercy. The Pharisee spoke to himself, the gospel-writer noted. As God said through Jeremiah: “For my people are foolish, they do not know me; they are stupid children, they have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil, but do not know how to do good.” (Jer 4, 22)

How are we to acquire knowledge of God? First we have to realize that this is not about knowing many things about God, but about knowing him! It is about relationship between intelligent persons. I take it in the same sense as when Genesis says: “Now the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have produced a man with the help of the Lord.” (Gen 4, 1) This is how the Tax-collector ‘knew’ God, and this knowledge brought justification. “I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former” Jesus said.

Second, we are to remember that ‘knowledge of God’ is a gift given from on high. We are but ‘mendicants’ of Truth, of this Knowledge. So we are expected to ask for it and to be ready to accept it.

Third, knowledge of self leads us to knowledge of God. Isn’t this the way that a new-born baby bonds with its mother? It is this type of bond that God, being both Father and Mother, wants for us.

In the Dialogue of Divine Providence, the Father tells Catherine of Siena: “You ask me, then, for … the will to know and love Me, who am the Supreme Truth. Wherefore I reply that this is the way, if you will arrive at a perfect knowledge and enjoyment of Me, the Eternal Truth, that you should never go outside the knowledge of yourself, and, by humbling yourself in the valley of humility, you will know Me and yourself, from which knowledge you will draw all that is necessary. … In yourself, you do not even exist; for your very being, as you will learn, is derived from Me, since I have loved both you and others before you were in existence”.

Catherine’s response was: “The knowledge which You have given me of Yourself in Your truth, constrains me … to give my life for the glory and praise of Your Name, for I have tasted and seen with the light of the intellect in Your light, the abyss of You - the eternal Trinity, and the beauty of Your creature, for, looking at myself in You, I saw myself to be Your image, my life being given me by Your power, oh! eternal Father, and Your wisdom, which belongs to Your only-begotten Son, shining in my intellect and my will, being one with Your Holy Spirit, who proceeds from You and Your Son, by whom I am able to love You. You, Eternal Trinity, are my Creator, and I am the work of Your hands, and I know through the new creation which You have given me in the blood of Your Son, that You are enamoured of the beauty of Your workmanship. Oh! Abyss, oh! Eternal Godhead, oh! Sea Profound! what more could You give me than Yourself”.

Let us receive St Peter’s blessing: May grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. (2 Pt 1:2) Let us also accept his call: “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen”. (2 Pt 3:18)

Delivered on March 14, 2015, Saturday of the Third week of Lent (Readings Hos 6:1-6 and Lk 18:9-14)