The Ache of Love

A Homily for the Solemnity of the Epiphany

On this Feast of the Epiphany we might ask: “What exactly is being made manifest in the Incarnation? What exactly is being revealed when God comes in the flesh?” I would like to offer the following suggestion for your own reflection and prayer, that perhaps what is being revealed is the Ache of Love at the heart of humankind that is also, at the same time, the Ache of Love at the heart of God. The ache that renders us all helpless, defenseless, in deep need and wildly open to something new. And this manifestation of God made flesh invites each of us to touch that ache because that is what it means to touch the heart of what it is to be human; the heart of what it is to be divine.

Just recall, for a moment, the two pivot points of the Life of Christ: His coming as an utterly dependent and delicate infant and his crucifixion as a degraded and demeaned adult human being. Both moments pulsate with the aching heart of a God so desperate to love us that he gives it all away so we could have the freedom to love as recklessly and boldly as he has loved us. And thereby love into reality a new way of being in this world.

And this Ache of Love is, by its nature, irresistible. Though everything that is in us might say: “No!” & “Stay clear!” Yet we crave it. We long for it. We want to wreck our lives on it. But instead we spend a lifetime fighting it. Keeping it at arm’s length. Cultivating disinterest, indifference, and even cynicism as a means to protect ourselves from that love we long for. Or we indulge ourselves in passing pleasures that can never satisfy, and only leave us ever more deeply in need. But listen to the words of scripture today:

“Raise your eyes and look about; they all gather and come to you: your sons come from afar, and your daughters in the arms of their nurses. Then you shall be radiant at what you see, your heart shall throb and overflow…”

And what of the Magi? They will risk a tumultuous journey filled with danger all in the hope of a promise of something that will utterly transform their lives: the Ache of Love wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. And once they touch that Ache and give the very treasures of their lives for it, we are told, they return to their own land by another route. Because once any of us touch that Ache of Love we cannot go back the same way we came. We cannot remain who we once were.

This Epiphany should rightfully frighten us because in it God is saying to each of us: “Look here!” “Look at what is lodged at the very center of your own being… touch this Ache of Love at the heart of who you are and come to know the Ache of Love that is me, myself.” And, I think, we can each intuit that if I touch that Ache of Love there is no going back, there is no remaining who I am, where I am. So what might happen if I touch that vulnerability, that dependency, that helplessness?

Well, I believe, a star will rise. A flare of light will brighten the darkened sky. A beacon will burgeon forth and a fire will catch and burn… and they will all gather and come to you… come to me… just as we gather and come to this altar to touch, receive and be nourished by the one who desires to awaken that Ache of Love in us all.

St. John of the Cross writes:

“Now I occupy my soul and all my energy in his service; I no longer tend the herd, nor have I any other work now that my every act is love.”

Let’s be honest. The world is flailing around us. We can take up arms and defend ourselves against it. We can build higher walls to protect our illusions of security. We can craft arguments and jump into the general shouting match that is our political and ecclesial system. We can embrace tribalism and stay only among our own kind. We can cynically join the voices of those so driven by fear that everyone who looks different, talks different, believes different is a threat and a potential enemy. We can join the deadly downward spiral of a too easily self-justified hate. 

OR we can follow that irresistible urge at the heart of each one of us. We can risk the journey and touch the Ache of Love at the center of who we are, which is the Ache of Love at the heart of our God and we can say for once and for all: “I have no other work now that my every act is love.”

On this Epiphany we are reminded that what is manifested at the Incarnation is nothing less then the Ache of Love at the heart of humankind which is the Ache of Love that is God himself. We can surrender to its irresistible pull and wreck our lives on the promise that this love alone is worth living and dying for. And just maybe our star will rise and others will be drawn to that same Ache of Love and, just maybe, together we can build something better than what we have. We can found something new.