OMELIE / Omelie EN

29 ott 2023

29/10/2023 - 30th Sunday in O.T. - year A

29/10/2023 - 30^th Sunday in O.T. - year A

Reading 1 EX 22,20-26 Psalm 17 Reading 2 1 THES 1,5-10 Gospel MT 22,34-40

Jesus is asked a difficult question: «Which commandment is the greatest?». It is difficult to answer, because all commandments came from God, so they are all great. But Jesus overcomes the difficulty because He does not look at the commandments but at the person who is giving them to us. He looks at the Father, who is giving us wise words, giving them with love. We listen to Him because we are thankful for His love, so we love Him. This is the most beautiful and fundamental Word which makes our life beautiful too: love. We love Him, God, and all the people He carries in His heart like a mother. If you love a mother, you love all her children too. To love God with all His children is the foundation for living, is the goal of all the teachings. I do not kill because I love, I do not steal because I love, I do not betray my spouse because I love, I do not lie because I love. If I do not love, I feel authorised to satisfy all my selfishness, but I obscure God’s beauty, I do not let anyone know Him. I myself do not know Him.

Unfortunately, the selfishness and the pride establish themselves easily in the hearts: this is why we feel weary of loving and accepting love, and often we avoid both. This is sin, which destroys the man, preventing him from being happy.

God wants men to be free from evil, and for this reason He “commands” love towards the people who are suffering because of the weight of theirs or others’ sin. But God knows also about our difficulties. He Himself wants therefore to be in us faithfully and permanently with His strength and His ability for love. To be able to dwell in us He is asking us to love Him, to remain in communion with Him, and, to make this path easy for us, here comes Jesus. Jesus is the one pouring on us a new kind of love, free from every pride and every selfishness: first of all, He shows us, by living the obedience to the Father up to the death and the mercy towards men up to forgiving on the cross the people who had nailed Him to it.

The true love for God and the true love for the neighbour we can see by looking at the way Jesus lived. When He answered the doctor of the law, He did not do anything but describing the love He was already living and He would have lived until the end. We will try to keep our eyes focused on Him, to be able to see and imitate Him.

Saint Paul pushes us in this direction. The apostle is presenting himself as well to be imitated, because he, since he had been conquered by the Lord, has lived according to His teachings without looking at the effort required. The life of all the Christians becomes an example, exactly like the faithful Thessalonians’ to whom he is writing the letter. They have converted and distanced themselves from the idols, by abandoning the ways of life the idols allow and which are an invitation to be selfish in every possible way: disregard for the life of others and the family, sexual impurity, spousal infidelity, meanness, violence.

By abandoning the idolatries the Christians serve the true and living God, the God who loves every man, who has compassion for the poor and the orphan, who defends the widow, who takes upon himself to help the foreigner.

The Christian, who lives as a stranger in this world because he knows he is a citizens of the heavens, looks sympathetically also at the foreigners and he desires to let them feel the Father’s goodness. The Christian does not limit himself to give the foreigner some tangible sign of God’s love, but he also wants to show them the huge gift he has received, the knowledge of Jesus, “his Son, who delivers us from the coming wrath”, who is preparing for us the access to eternal life!