It's love all over again
30th Sunday in Ordinary Time: 29th October, 2017
Exo 22:20-26; 1 Thes 1: 5c-10; Mt 22: 34-40
"What is the central theme of the readings this Sunday?" asked a friend of mine. And when I replied, "it is about loving God and loving your neighbour", instinctively he sighed: 'oh the same love allover again!' Some times we might sound totally redundant speaking of love. In fact the fact is, in Jesus' message, Love is the sole dominant theme, and everything else is only a footnote to it.
Love spoken of in today's Word, as ever, is not a mere sentiment or a feeling! It is a choice, a concrete choice for good. It is a serious matter of the HEAD. It is a decision made, a rationale adopted, a perspective that affects all other decisions and choices in life. The ultimate good is God, hence love is basically a choice for God! Loving God with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my strength, is the basis of this choice for good. I choose good, because I choose God. How foolishly contradicting it would be to say I choose to love God and therefore I kill or harm my brothers and sisters! Is the choice really coherent? Is the choice really rational? Is the choice really good or Godly? Choosing God, is choosing the absolute good; it is choosing life not death; it is choosing the other not the self, that leads us to the second dimension.
Love is a choice for the other, a matter of the HEART. It is only through the heart can we place the other before us, because it is only through the heart can we hear the unsaid sorrows of the other; it is only through the heart we can see the unseen pains of the souls; it is only through the heart we can touch the unexplored depths of a person! Love has to be a concrete choice for the other, specially the afflicted, suffering 'Other', who cries out from the agony of the everyday life. Can we open the eyes of our heart; can we sharpen the ears of our heart; can we extend the hands of our heart... yes...
Love is a matter of the HANDS... it is a choice to act, to act on behalf of the needy. Love cannot remain a mere sentiment, it has to be translated into concrete decisions and transforming acts, on behalf of the needy. The first reading lists the widows, the orphan, the children, the poor, the needy... that is a broad indication of a whole lot of persons who are close to the heart of God: the exploited, the enslaved, the maltreated, the manipulated, the oppressed... It has to be active, affecting the life of the person who claims to love and transforming the life of the one who is loved!
Love is the crux and the essence of Christ's message and it will never be redundant. Specially seeing the world that is growing increasingly selfish and menacingly might-oriented, love will ever be wanting and if you and I do not offer it abundantly wherever we are, it would be a serious deficiency of God in the world today!
29.10.2017