Where faith and love meet, Christ is!

Tuesday, 28th week in Ordinary time

October 16, 2018: Gal 5: 1-6; Lk 11: 37-41

When the Pharisee invited Jesus to come home, Jesus did not mind at all going over and dining with him. In spite of feeling honoured by his invitation having been accepted, the Pharisee was more worried about Jesus washing or not washing his hands, rituals followed or not, circumcision or no circumcision, laws and fulfillment of laws... Jesus gets upset over it. The happiness of having a guest was lost in the judgements that the host was passing on the guests. The joy of togetherness is lost in the insistence of legality. True sense of love is lost when one picks and chooses whom to show his or her love. 

Paul redifines faith in Jesus' terms - it is to acknowledge that Christ has set us free! We are not under any yoke anymore. Nothing can bind us except the love of the Father made manifest in the Son and poured into our hearts through the Spirit. Why do we want to give into that yoke again by equating our faith to 'doing' something, 'performing rituals' instead of relating to God with a free heart. That freedom is born only out of love.

When a person does not possess that freedom, but has something inside and acts totally different for the sake of those who look on, he or she is wasting his or her life! There is a dichotomy in the person that ruins the very essence of that person's life. His or her life, thus lived, is not worth living at all. Dichotomìes and discrepancies between words and actions, between beliefs and life: they were immediate disqualifiers according to Jesus, in the pursuit of eternal life. 

Faith and love have to meet, they need to go together and where they meet Christ comes alive! If you and I wish to invite Christ into our lives, we need to prepare that space where our faith and love meet, without dichotomies or discrepancies! Where faith and love meet, Christ is!