1. The Introit of the Mass for the 3rd Sunday of Easter was in praise of the ‘joy of loving,’ ‘amoris laetitia.’ Indeed, both love and joy are fruits of the Holy Spirit. The joy of loving is both from the same spirit. The whole Mass of the 3rd Sunday of Easter is about the ‘joy of loving.’
Last week the Apostolic Exhortation of Pope Francis with the same title came out. The timing and the identical topic gave the impression that he Exhortation was an explanation of the 3rd Sunday of Easter. So let us compare the two.
2. The ‘joy of loving’ from the 3rd Sunday of Easter.
The Gospel describes the apostles’ fishing trip in Lake Tiberius. This trip was after Easter and their last fishing trip. St. John’s Gospel prophetically showed this trip as the image of the Catholic Church before she is presented to Christ as His bride in heaven.
The Gospel describes the Catholic soul that will surely go to heaven. They were described as the 153 big fishes caught in the net that did not break, were not hauled into the boat and caught only from the right side of the boat. As described by St. Thomas of Aquinas and noted in a previous post, these are the members of the Catholic Church at this very specific time in the history of the Church, all of whom are destined to go to heaven.
The number 153 represents ‘the joy of loving.’ Let’s do some arithmetic.
Take the number 10 as representing obedience to the 10 commands of God. Then take 7 as the number of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Add the two together and it makes 17. Now, add the numericals from 1 – 17 and that will make 153, the number of fishes in the net representing the spiritual state of the souls that are all destined to enter the Kingdom of God. And what is the spiritual state of their soul? They had obeyed all the 10 commandments of God and they have the fruit of the Holy Spirit described as the Joy of loving…….these are the first two fruits of the Holy Spirit, Love and Joy.
This ‘joy of loving’ is the fruit of the Holy Spirit that the soul receives AFTER it has obeyed the 10 commands of God. Disobey the 10 commandments and absolutely no fruits from the Holy Spirit. This is the significance of the number of fishes 153.
The Mass for the 3rd Sunday describes three steps leading to the ‘joy of loving.’
First is obedience to the commands of Christ. This was emphasized by the First Reading where questioned by the High Priest, the apostles answered; ‘Better for us to obey God than men. (Keep this apostolic response in mind.)
Second, let’s define ‘loving Christ. Christ asked Peter; ‘Peter, do you love Me?’ Christ is asking the same question from all of us. It is important that we know what he means when asking that question. Christ did not expect receiving the answer; ‘love is never having to say I’m sorry.’ Though Peter was really very sorry for having denied Christ three times. But by this time that was history. This is after Easter and approaching Pentecost. Peter had wisdom and knowledge, gifts of the Holy Spirit.
St. Peter answers but Christ wanted to make sure both of them had the same definition of ‘love.’ After St. Peter answered ‘yes’ Christ defines what He meant by ‘love,’ and says ‘this love is shown by feeding my lambs and feeding my sheep.’ St. Thomas comments on this and says that Christ was telling Peter to feed His spiritually young lambs and older sheep with the dogmas and morals of Faith, i.e. with the contents of Divine Revelation. In Catholicism there is absolutely no other way of showing love than to teach oneself and the other how to go to heaven, by teaching them the commandments of Christ.
And thirdly, only after the apostles have learned how to love in the truly Catholic way can they receive the fruit of the Holy Spirit called ‘joy.’ There you have a complete picture; perfect obedience to the 10 commandments of God, perfect knowledge of how to love, and after putting into practice the right way of loving, the reward of receiving the fruit of the Holy Spirit, ‘Joy.’ Thus the Introit’s the ‘Joy of Loving,’ an experience on earth by souls who make up the 153 members of the Catholic Church.
3. Clarifications.
Love is obedience to the commands of God. These commandments are, first, the commandments of God the Father from the Old Testament. And secondly, the commandments of Christ from the New Testament.
When we refer to love, it is obedience to the commands of Christ in the New Testament. Pope Benedict in describing the ‘new’ evangelisation calls obedience to the Old Testament commands as life of repentance; and he calls obedience to the New Testament commands as an encounter with the soul of the Church or encounter with Jesus Christ. And when the soul has received the fruit of the Holy Spirit, Pope Benedict calls it encounter with the spiritual soul of the Church or encounter with the Holy Spirit.
So, again, the first step is to obey the commands of the Old Testament. The second step is to love Christ by obeying the commands of Christ in the New Testament. The third step is encounter with the Holy Spirit where the soul receives the fruit of Joy. Thus it can be said that the soul is experiencing ‘joy in loving,” or ‘amoris laetitia.’
4. The week before, the Vatican issued an Apostolic Exhortation entitled ‘amoris laetitia,’ that seems to be describing the Liturgy of the 3rd Sunday of Easter. But let’s look a the details.
First, it tolerates husbands who abandon their real wives and children, encouraged by the Vatican document to annul the original marriage, remarry and in some cases receive Holy Communion. Let us see how many mortal sins were committed. One, abandoning one’s wife; secondly, abandoning one’s children. Thirdly, marrying another woman. Fourthly, annulment of previous valid marriage and fifthly, receiving Holy Communion. That is five mortal sin.
What are the effects of these mortal sins in the soul? He does not love God nor neighbour. In fact, he does not love anybody, not even his own self in the right way. The only love he has is self-love which according to St.Thomas is, also, a sin.
If there is disobedience to the commands of Christ, there is no love, since Christ said; ‘If you love Me, keep My commandments. If there is no love of Christ, then the Holy Spirit will not give any fruits of joy. With the initial disobedience to the commands of God, there can be no love nor joy, thus no ‘amoris laetitia.’
5. Conclusion
The Apostolic Exhortation cannot be so called because it goes against the teaching of the apostles and it is not exhorting. It is an encouragement to sin. It cannot be a Catholic document.
The authors are not part of the 153 fishes in the net. They do not love as St. Peter did because they are not feeding the lambs; they are poisoning the lambs and sheep. They will certainly not have the four visible marks of the true Church mentioned in the Nicene Creed. They would not have the three theological virtues because there is no encounter with Jesus nor with the spiritual soul of the Church, the Holy Spirit. In short, the authors and the document are not according to the teaching of the Catholic Church. It is even anti-Catholic in that it goes against the above Liturgical message of the 3rd Sunday of Easter.
So what do we do? As the first reading says in the words of the
Apostle to the High Priest; ‘we would rather obey God than men.’ Well, the signature at the bottom of the Apostolic Exhortation seems to belong to a man. While the author of the 3rd Sunday of Easter readings is known to be God. The title of the Apostolic Exhortation should have been ‘The thrill of being able to do what the passion wants.’