OMELIE / Omelie EN

03 nov 2024

03/11/2024 - XXXI Sunday of the T.O. - Year B

03/11/2024 - XXXI Sunday of the T.O. - Year B

First Epistle Deuteronomy 6,2-6 Psalm 17/18 Second Epistle Hebrews 7,23-28 Gospel Mark 12,28-34

One of the hallmarks of the Messiah is the fact that he ‘makes the deaf hear’! There is a material deafness, whereby we do not hear any noise, but there is a deeper, spiritual deafness, whereby we do not heed the Word of God, that Word which is lovingly addressed to us for our salvation. From this deafness it is only possible to heal if and when we want to, naturally accepting God's free and holy work.

Here it is that the invitation, sometimes the command, ‘Listen’ returns often throughout the Scriptures! Jesus himself takes up this invitation of Moses and makes it resound in the ears of the scribe who asks him what the most important commandment is. It almost seems that the commandment is: ‘Listen’. Listening is fundamentally an act of love. He who does not love does not listen, and he who loves seeks to deepen his listening, to make it ever more attentive, available, immediate. He who loves listens in such a way that he who speaks to him is helped to express himself and manifest all his desires and all his wisdom.

He who loves also listens with the desire to fulfil the will of the beloved. So is listening between spouses, so is listening to children and parents. So too is listening to God. God himself is pleased that we express ourselves to him, and so Jesus addresses the invitation to us: ‘knock, and it will be opened to you’, as if to say that God is ready to listen to us and to fulfil what we ask of him.

But we also want to listen to God so that he can manifest his desires to us. We know that he is wise, that he loves us, that he even knows our future and the more distant and more complex consequences of our actions, and therefore we desire his word as a sure indication for our path and our actions. That is why the invitation ‘listen’ becomes one with its continuation: ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength’!

He who listens is already on the road to love. He who listens is already giving a real and concrete start to his love. Love is not a series of feelings to be enjoyed and felt, it is not emotion, but love is concreteness of action, of availability, of offering one's time and energy, one's life. You shall love the Lord your God.

And Jesus adds: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’. Whoever loves God, that is, whoever listens to him, also continues to listen to his neighbour, because God can also speak to him through the people he meets on his path.

Love brings one closer to the kingdom of God. Jesus says just that to the scribe who understands his words: ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God’. And we ask ourselves: is loving not enough? To enter the kingdom of God, what is needed besides love? Love brings us closer to the Kingdom, but it is not enough.

The letter to the Hebrews comes to our aid. We do not enter the kingdom of God by our own strength alone, not even by the strength of our love. We enter the kingdom of God through the sacrifice of Jesus, the holy and innocent high priest, who offers himself to the Father. Our love brings us closer to God, but we reach him by accepting the Son he has sent us, by uniting ourselves to his offering, which is without blemish, perfect. Then I will first try to listen to Jesus, to love him, to put him above everything and everyone. This love will also give the necessary colour and intensity to love of the Father and love of neighbour.

When I love Jesus, both God and neighbour feel loved by me. When I love Jesus I enter his kingdom, obeying him with loving trust.