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OMELIE / Omelie EN

26/6/2016
29/10/2017 – 30th Sunday of O. T. - A

29/10/2017 – 30th Sunday of O. T. - A

Month dedicated to the Missions of the Church

Reading 1, Exodus 22,20-26 * Psalm 17 * Reading 2, First Thessalonians 1,5c-10 * Gospel, Matthew 22,34-40

 

We are getting closer to the end of the month of the Missions. This is the reason why it is a good thing to read again the praise that Saint Paul dedicates to the Thessalonians. They have done their best to make the Lord Jesus known in other cities as well and they have started living in a way becoming to it, so much so to become unequivocally different from the pagans, in a way that everybody was aware of it. Their life was giving credence to their words, and so “your faith in God has spread everywhere. We do not need to tell other people about it”. This is the true missionary way, the one to be followed nowadays in order to reach with a new evangelization our towns and our cities, or, even better, our peoples.

We can ask ourselves: how could have possibly be the life of those Christians? It is not very difficult to imagine it: they have taken the words that Jesus is addressing us today seriously. These are the answer to a Pharisee, a doctor of the Law. He is entrusted by his group with the task of placing Jesus in a difficult situation by asking Him a trick question.

  • We know that the Pharisees were distinguished by the obedience to the commandments: they were very careful to not ignore even the smallest of them. But if someone obeys the commandments forgetting the person who has given them, that is to say forgetting His fatherly love, he risks to become a monster. Would you like to check if you are a Pharisee too? Or if you would like to become one? Scrupulously obey the commandments then, enjoying the fact that you are very obedient. You will start noticing the disobediences of others, you will end up judging them, condemning then and despising them. You will not have love in your heart any more, the love that God wanted to see in your thoughts, in your words and in your behavior, instead. This is why He gave the commandments, because love would grow in you and because love would not be excluded from any of your relationships with the others.

And well, the Pharisee asks Jesus exactly about the commandments: “Which is the greatest commandment of the Law?”. This is a proper trap. As a matter of fact in the Pharisee’s mind all commandments come from God, so all of them are equally important. If Jesus was putting one before all the others, He could be accused of teaching that some of the God’s words are not very important.

Jesus knows the commandments, but His attention is turned to the Father. He loves Him, He is His only love. He knows that from the Father comes our life and that, if you do not love Him, it does not make any sense to obey the commandments, and you cannot even obey them properly, so to speak live them like acts of love, in order to lavish love on the world.

Having His eyes riveted on the Father’s love, Jesus can answer calmly and confidently: “You must love…”. This is the basis, the content, the goal, the strength, the joy and the life of every commandment. Probably, the Pharisees did not even put it on the list of the six hundred and thirteen commandments, all considered equally important.

Coming from Jesus’ mouth, these words: “You must love…”, take a new flavor and a new strength. It does not even seem a commandment. “You must love…” looks like a journey, a road of joy, a path running uphill, but safe, free from doubts and vacillations. “You must love…”, it is a sentence that throws you in the arms of… of whom, precisely? First of all of “the Lord your God”. He looks like someone who lets you love Him, who needs to meet you and kiss you. Your life could stop there, in that hug. There it becomes complete, perfect, accomplished, stable, and even easy. Jesus foresees, just like the Word of God, that that love has a sterling character, is undivided, not irregular, not in patches. And then He keeps describing the action of loving God. This will be an action that involves everything, “all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind”, the attention to the commandments as well. Nothing is left for something else. “You must love…”! However, Jesus knows that that God you are trying to love “with all your heart” is someone that has already met you and loved you on His turn, and He did so surrounding your life with other hearts, those of “your neighbor”. This means that “you must love…” Him truly and fully in doing your best for this “neighbor” of yours, whom is seen by the Word of God in the Holy Scripture as the object of God’s affection. Today’s first reading gives proof of this. God listens to the poor “if he appeals to me… At least with me he will find compassion!”. If your heart is all given to God, together with Him you will listen to the appeal of the foreigner, of the orphan, of the widow, of whom is object of injustice, of whoever is left without cloak. “You must love…” is then the great commandment, even better, the only one. All the others are only concrete ways in which “you must love…”.

The life of whoever listens to Jesus becomes then in this way a novelty, it really becomes good news, joyfully given and endless source of joy, that is to say a gospel.