it is fitting but not necessary 2 - 1st week tuesday 2015

Today we continue reflecting on our first reading, this time from the letter to the Hebrews.  The letter to the Hebrews today affirms that Jesus is God through whom all things exist.  This is what St. Hilary our saint today defended.  Jesus is God.  But the letter to the Hebrews says he was made for a while a little lower than the angels.  It means that Jesus as the messiah, as a savior, became a human being like us, he shared in our fallen nature and made himself subject to the conditions of human life – he shared in our sadness, pain, sufferings, and finally death.  Was it necessary for Jesus to go through all these in order to save us?  Was it necessary for him to become human.  Was it necessary for him to shed blood on the cross?  No.  The letter to the Hebrews says it is fitting, but it did not say that it was necessary.  Maayo gid, angay gid, bagay gid.  Pero kinahanglanon gid bala ini?  Indi.  God could have chosen other means to save us, after all nothing is impossible with God.  But God chose the way of suffering.  God chose suffering as the way to save us.  Why is this so? 

Our reading today does not give us the reason.  But St. Thomas Aquinas did.

Salvation cannot be complete if God simply saved us and pardoned us.  It can only be complete when God shows us the reason for saving us.  It can only be complete when God reveals to us his motive for saving us.  And what is his motive - God loves us and he would not even spare his only Son in his love for us.  So why must Jesus die in order to save us when it was not really necessary?  So that we will understand that salvation was made possible, it was done out of the deepest and profoundest love of God for each one of us.  God did not just save us.  In the death of Jesus on the cross God gave us the reason for saving us. For St. Augustine, it is not just the good will of God that saved us, it was his passion for us – ang kaluwasan indi lang gikan sa maayo nga kabubut-on sang Dios para sa aton, sa baylo halin ini sa iya paghigugma.  The willingness to suffer for the other, is always offered as the proof of one’s love.  And forfeiting one’s life for one’s friends is, as Jesus said, the greatest proof of love.  This is the reason why God chose to suffer the cross to save us – it was fitting but it was not necessary as the Letter to the Hebrews attest.  You have to understand that love is not always practical, a romantic will do more than what is asked or required.

Another reason that St. Thomas Aquinas gave why God chose the way of suffering to save us was to give us an example of loving.  It follows and completes the first reason.  We can only be truly saved if we too learned to love as God loves.

Allow me to thank you for the subsidy this Tuesday community of mass goers have provided the seminary.  Fr. Boboy gathered all the colecta every Tuesday of 2014 and gave it to St. Vincent Ferrer Seminary as your yearly support.  We have collected 190 thousand last year.  Thank you so much.  Is it necessary for you to give every year for the seminary?  It is fitting, but it is not required. But you have to understand, love is always superfluous. In love one will always do more than what is asked or required.  And this how God loves us too.