WORD 2day: Tuesday, 11th week in Ordinary time
June 14, 2022: 1 Kings 21: 17-29; Matthew 5: 43-48
The first reading is an extreme type of an example for God's love and mercy. As the psalms and other books in the Old Testament describe, God always manifested Godself to be slow to anger, abounding in love, ready to forgive and longing to remain in relationship with humanity. Though Ahab's acts were so gruesome, the mere fact that he repented for those and felt sorry for his foolishness, turned the entire issue upside down. Ahab finds favour in the eyes of God, Ahab becomes lovable all over again.
The message is pretty clear. For us too, the merciful Lord awaits and awaits with an ever burning love, to get us all back into Lord's own embrace for eternity. But this getting back will not happen automatically. It needs more attention to basics through developing traits such as personal integrity, spiritual identity and a profound sense of belonging to the Reign. One of the signs that we can really behold this immense love of God, is our tendency to love each other, just as the Lord loves us.
This is the reason why Jesus instructed us: love one another as I have loved you; the world will recognise you as my disciples through this love that you have for one another! Yes, it is in love that we become disciples of Christ, sons and daughters of God, true people of the Spirit. For it is love and love alone that is the epitome of Christian living: Love, the Father's Perfection!