THIRTY FIRST ORDINARY SUNDAY OF THE YEAR B!
Once, there was an elderly monk who prayed many years for a vision to strengthen his faith, but it never came. He had almost given up the hope when, one day, a vision of Jesus appeared. The monk was thrilled and was enjoying the vision. But then, right in the middle of the apparition, the monastery bell rang, which meant it was time to feed the poor who gathered daily at the monastery gate. It was the elderly monk’s turn to feed them. He was torn between staying and leaving the heavenly vision. With a heavy heart, he turned his back on the vision and went off to feed the poor.
After an hour, he returned to his room, and to his surprise, the apparition of the Lord was still there, waiting for him. As the monk dropped to his knees, the vision said to him, “My son, if you would not have gone to feed the poor, I would not have stayed for you.”
The story conveys the message of today's Gospel, which combines the love of God and the love for neighbour. “You shall love the Lord your God. You shall love your neighbour as yourself”. Jesus adds, “There is no other commandment greater than these.”
At the very heart of Christianity is love. Love is the Christian identity. It is the mark Christ gave to Christians to wear before the world. Only with this mark may the world know that Christians are indeed Christians and that Jesus was sent by the Father. Love of God and love of neighbour is the most important principle of Christian living. Without the love of neighbour, there can be no real love of God. Every Christian has to be his brother’s keeper. Our entry into the kingdom of God will depend on our ability to put the principle of Christian living into practice.
The plant needs the light of the sun and the sap of the tree to grow. The day needs the night to run its full course. The child needs the smile of the mother to grow. We need each other to grow into maturity. We are supported, appreciated, and strengthened by our neighbours. Life becomes impossible and meaningless when we live in isolation. We can live without our friends, but not without our neighbours.
It is a vain attempt to search for God in the temple, in the mosque, in Gurudwara and in the church premises when He is readily found among our neighbours. God is there where our neighbours are struggling to make both ends meet. He is there where our neighbours try to lead a just and honest life in the face of adversities. There, we must worship God first and then proceed to the temple to offer our sacrifices. Then only our worship will be true, and our offerings will be acceptable to God.
In Gitanjali, Chapter XI, Rabindra Nath Tagore writes,"Leave this chanting, singing and telling of beads! Whom dost thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut? Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee. He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the pathmaker is breaking stones. He is with them in the sun and in the shower, and His garment is covered with dust."
We see today the tension between Jesus and the Pharisees, the tension between the Old Testament and the New Testament, and the tension between the Laws and the heavenly values. God gave commandments to make people understand love. The people of Israel were given laws and commandments not just to practice them but rather to learn to love God and men. The inner purpose of commandments and laws is to experience love. The real purpose of the laws in the Old Testament was to take people closer to God by their virtues and pious activities. But what has happened? Laws remain, but no virtues and pious activities in the heart of the people. At the time of Jesus, He experienced by seeing the hearts of the people that the very laws and commandments which are supposed to take the people closer to God, taking the people away from God.
Jesus wants both laws and virtues to be effective in the heart of the people. People are like machines rather than humans. Jesus is searching for the virtues in the hearts of the people and not simply laws. People are happy by following the laws, but their hearts are full of evil. Look at the sentence, "For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”
Remember, love with all heart includes our right actions, right thoughts, right emotions, and affections. Love with all mind demands our positive thoughts. If we create negative thoughts in our mind, then we can not love God and men. One cannot love God with half-heart, half mind and half in everything. A person, therefore, should take a whole effort only to love God and men. Soul is the place where God wants to communicate with us. When our hearts, minds, and strengths become positive, then the whole self or person becomes positive in loving God and man.
We talk a lot about our love of God, or more so about our love of neighbour, but the truth of the matter is that many, if not most, of us really love ourselves! Love of self, the least and the last of the commandments of Jesus, in reality, our top priority—naturally. Only by God’s grace can we really and truly transcend our selfishness and pride.
It would be good for us today to check if we are keeping these commandments in our lives according to Jesus’ gradation. In so far as we do so, we are “not far from the Kingdom of God.” In so far as we fail to do so, we are just focused on the ways of this worldly kingdom.
To end this, I would like to share with you our food for reflection of these words:
I searched for my soul;
and my soul I found not.
I searched for my God,
and God eluded me.
I searched for my neighbour;
and there I found all three,
My Soul, My God, and My neighbour. Amen.
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