Love, love (until it) hurts!

Feast of St Agatha, Virgin and Martyr

1 Kgs 8:1-13; Mk 6:53-56

There is a question which baffles us today as much as it has baffled theologians for hundreds of years. It is almost a contradiction, a paradox: How could it be that a God who has sent His Only Son into the world to heal all those who were sick and afflicted now demands the life of human beings who suffer martyrdom in his name?

I certainly do not intend to explain away the mystery of suffering here. But I think that we have alot to learn from the martyrdom of St Agatha that we are commemorating today especially if we read it in the light of today’s Gospel. St Agatha, I believe, can teach us what is means to be ready to suffer for the love of God.

The name Agatha comes from the Greek, Agate, meaning good. She was a young pious woman from Sicily who lived in the 3rd Century AD. When she was still in her teenage years, she asked her Bishop permission to join the order of consecrated virgins, who at the time used to wear a red veil. When the Emperor Decius saw her, he was overtaken with envy because he wanted her for himself. He therefore accused Agatha of acting against the state and gave orders for her to be captured and tortured. According to a very strong tradition, she sought refuge in Malta and then in again in Sicily. It is said that she spent this time catechising and handing on the faith. Agatha was eventually captured. However she held strongly to her faith despite all the torture she suffered at the hands of the Emperor until she was eventually killed.

This accound of the martyrdom of St Agatha seems to contrast strongly with today's Gospel, where we see Jesus's healing power. We read how the sick gathered in the market places wanting to touch the fringe of his garment in order to be restored to wholeness.

Perhaps it is well worth pausing for a moment on a special type of suffering: suffering out of love. Somebody once said that what disturbs people is not suffering alone but meaningless suffering. St Teresa of Calcutta used to say that if we love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love. We often encounter a kind of suffering in our life which is similar to Agatha's and similar to that of the sick persons hoping to be healed by Jesus. In fact, sometimes forgiving is painful. Sometimes it hurts to be generous. Sometimes it hurts to forget ourselves and put the other person before our needs. Our culture often acts like the Emperor with regard to St Agatha, discouraging us from making that extra step of love towards God or act of charity towards our brothers and sisters. Yet we must have the faith that the sick persons in today's Gospel: that an encounter with Jesus done in faith can restore us to wholeness, overcoming our weakness and our inertia to love.

The letter to the Hebrews says that we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, that is saints - like St Agatha among many others. They have completed the race before us and therefore we ought to be encouraged by their courageous example so that we too may be ever ready to love in the small but concrete ways, to love always, and to love until it hurts.