Jordan Peterson once told a story about a mother who dropped her child off at school for the first day and, after watching her go inside, she didn’t cry in front of the child but did so in the car. Peterson said that was heroic! A mother’s natural sense is to protect her child, and to let her child leave is a great sacrifice! Do we understand this?
I’m only coming to appreciate this sacrifice of giving up what we love most. Two times when I celebrated Baptism, I made the mother cry because, in my enthusiasm, I said, “This child could be a saint. Imagine, if they become like the Canadian Martyrs or like St. John the Baptist (we were celebrating on their feast days), and die for Jesus!” Even the thought of their child dying was overwhelming. Thank God, these mothers were gracious and told me they understood what I meant.
If you watch the 2012 movie Lincoln, there’s a scene when Abraham Lincoln’s first son, 22-year-old Robert, begs him to let him enlist in the army to fight in the civil war. But his mother won’t let him, because she had already lost two other sons. We still have the letter from 1865 in which Lincoln writes General Grant to allow his son to join the military, but to be kept away from the fighting, because he couldn’t make the sacrifice.
Today, on this solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we’re trying to appreciate better God’s love for us, and that there are different levels of love and sacrifice. The Gospel today says, “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (Jn 3:16). This ‘so loved the world ’refers to the degree of intensity: Up to this point, it was never known that God loved the world in this way, as to give His only Son to save us. And this is the archetype; no one can conceptually come up with a greater sacrifice (Jordan Peterson, 12 Rules for Life, 171-172): A perfect father gives us His perfect son for people who reject Him. In no other religion does a perfectly innocent man who is also God die for the guilty.
However, it’s hard to understand the Father’s sacrifice at an emotional level because we don’t see Him. We know, in the Old Testament, how Abraham had to sacrifice his beloved son as a test, but this event only helps a little to understand the Father’s love. So, we have to look at Mary’s sacrifice to understand the Father’s sacrifice. As we said before, God has maternal aspects to Him, so, when we look at her, we understand Him.
If we look at the Pietà sculpture by Michelangelo, which is now in St. Peter’s in Rome, he purposely made the body of Mary larger than Jesus, so that we would focus on her suffering.
The Italian word pietà means pity, compassion, because Mary was sharing fully in Jesus’ suffering; His suffering had finished, but her suffering continued. Michelangelo tried to render our Lord’s body completely lifeless, with His head drooping right into His shoulder, His right thigh muscle is sagging, because Michelangelo copied what he saw from real corpses, and there is even blood pooled in His dangling right hand “to suggest the heaviness of death”. Those of us who have experienced the tragedy of holding our children’s bodies in our arms like this understand. Nevertheless, there’s a difference: Usually, when our children die before we do, it catches us by surprise and we resist it, but, in our Mother Mary’s case, she knew her Son would die for us, for people who reject God, for people who reject her Son, and, in effect, she said, ‘Here is my Son. I let Him die for your sakes’—now that is a sacrifice! This is why Mary’s right hand holds Jesus to herself, while her left hand is outstretched in offering Him to us.
St. Augustine says there are four things to be considered in every sacrifice: 1) who’s making it; 2) what’s offered; 3) to whom it’s offered; and 4) for whom it’s offered. So, if I offer a sacrifice, it’s better than Fr. Anthony Ho offering it, right? Now, if I offer the sacrifice to those ivory Chinese elephants that my grandmother had on her shelf for good luck, that’s not a good sacrifice because they’re not real. But, if I offer it to God the Father, then it’s worth something. Now, if I give up chocolates for Lent, whoop-de-do; but if I give God my life, then that’s precious. And if I give my life to God as a sacrifice for my dog, that’s not as noble as if I do it for you.
It’s very helpful in life if we start seeing love under these four aspects. Generally speaking, our parents love us more than we love them, because they sacrifice more for us than we do for them. Now, when it comes to siblings and friends, who loves more? It depends on who offers more. Sometimes we have unequal friendships, when we adjust our schedules for other people and we do what they want, but they don’t call us back and don’t put as much effort into it? The point is that no one here will ever love us perfectly. Our parents’ love, our friends’ love will always fall short.
Yet God’s love is perfect. We know this because a perfect person offers a perfect sacrifice to a perfect Father for us. The Gospel continues: “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (Jn 3:17). We have all freely separated ourselves from God through our choices, our sins, but He doesn’t want us to remain in our condemnation.
“The one who believes in him is not condemned; but the one who does not believe is condemned already, for not having believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God” (3:18). Faith means trust. God loves us, is not against us, has given us everything. So, the questions He poses to us are: Do we believe that? Do we receive His gift? Do we love Him in return? Again, these are the questions God the Father poses to each human heart, with respect for our free choice: Do we believe in Him? Do we receive His love? Do we love Him in return? To go back to the Pietà sculpture, do I believe Jesus died for me?
This is why the Mass is such a beautiful gift. Who’s making the sacrifice during Mass? Jesus, through His priests. What does He offer? Himself, in the Eucharist. And the Eucharist is offered to whom? The Father. And for whose sake? All the world.
Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa says: Imagine the oldest son of a family goes out and spends all his money to purchase his father the most beautiful card for his birthday, and then gets his brothers and sisters to sign it. When the son hands it to the father, the gift comes from all of them, but only one paid the price.
That’s how Mass is: We get to sign our names to Jesus’ gift; we get to express our faith by sharing in Jesus’ sacrifice at Mass. We’ll say more on this in the future, with regard to Baptism and being in a state of grace, but, for now, let’s just remember that the Father loves us so much that He gave us His Son, and we’re invited to believe in Him and give Him our very selves.