Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time Mt 22,34-40

The main task of our lives

You may have noticed that some people try to speak in tall abstract constructions in foreign words and learned expressions to give a high learning impression. With the Lord Jesus, we observe the opposite. He spoke and clearly. In today’s Gospel, he tells us clearly what the main task of our lives is. He says: You will love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. And you will love your neighbor as yourself. You have known this teaching of Jesus for a long time, and yet we will think about it because it is imperative.

Let us first recall that in Jesus’ day, the Jewish scribes taught that 248 commandments should be kept because a man has bones in his body, and 365 prohibitions must be observed because he has a year’s days. And he who seriously meant it with his faith had to keep all these commands and prohibitions universally. But who could feel good in a faith fastened with so many buttons? Not surprisingly, many Jews, instead of listening to the Pharisees and the scribes, gathered around Jesus of Nazareth. They noticed that instead of regulations and prohibitions, Jesus proclaimed one excellent task: to open himself to the service of God and neighbor. He told his listeners, “Unless your righteousness is greater than the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mathew 5:20).

They learned in particular that one of the Pharisees had stood at the very front of the temple and boasted in prayer before God: Lord, thank you that I am not like other people because I fast up to twice a week and give tens of all that I have, so also from cumin and parsley. But the Lord Jesus did not admire him for it. He admired the sinful tormentor who remained in the back of the temple and showed love for God in humble words: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner” (Luke 18:13). But simultaneously, they learned from the Lord Jesus that love for God was inevitably linked to love of neighbor, for St. John the Apostle told them this: “If anyone says I love God and does not love his brother, whom he sees, how he can to love God whom he does not see?” (1 John 4.20).

This task is obvious to us. We just have to remember that love of God is not some formally, “I love you.” Similarly, it is not enough to express the love of a neighbor with the words “I love you.” So, the love of God and neighbor cannot be fulfilled in terms. Comments must be completed with deeds. Only in acts does the first love take place. After all, the Lord Jesus says, “He who loves me will keep my word.” Keeping his word means doing what the Lord Jesus asks of us. And because love by action is much harder than love by terms, the Lord Jesus offers us his help. Not that He would shake our hand. People help us by shaking hands. He provides us with the service He gave the apostles. He was left with his Holy Spirit, and the apostles received the Holy Spirit and loved God and neighbor with the love of the Holy Spirit. The same is true of The apostle Paul wrote to the Romans as follows: The love of God is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit given to us (cf. Rom 5: 5), to receive this love of God from the Holy Spirit as the apostles. , tell, brothers and sisters, does the role of love of God and neighbor not become more sympathetic, attractive, and pleasant to us in such reflection?

May the view of one of the thousands of saints who excelled in the love of God and neighbor be strengthened. It is, for example, St. Karol Borome. At first, he lived as it belonged to the count: exquisite, elegant, and without interest in the spiritual life. But when his beloved brother died suddenly, he recovered and turned fervently to God. He even became a priest and a bishop. And since then, his life has been a constant realization of God’s love poured into him by the Holy Spirit. He made it not only in words but also in deeds. This love propelled him to set out on foot and across the deserts of streams and rivers, bleeding from his feet, to visit the distant low dwellings of the people to whom he supported the livelihood and faith in God. He ignored the heat and the cold, the rain and the storms, the discomfort, and the times because he had a great love for God and neighbor in his heart. He said he would give a thousand lives to gain one man for faith in God. This love put fiery words into his mouth, igniting the flames of love in the listeners’ hearts in the sermons.

This love led him to deepen in prayer his genuine relationship with God and his great thirst for eternal union with God. Doesn’t his example encourage us to love God and our neighbors? At the same time, it draws our attention to the importance of today’s mission Sunday because mission Sunday reminds us that we have a love for God and neighbors to spread around us according to Jesus’ words: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Mathew 5:16). ) This Sunday also reminds us to take care of those around us and those far away from us to whom missionaries are sent to spread the faith. Today, we have a unique opportunity for unselfish love for God and neighbor, so please, brothers and sisters, let us open our hearts to the Holy Spirit today to fill us with passion because the Scriptures say and that who remains in love. He abides in God, and God abides in him.