"Those who are called to the table of the Lord must glow with the brightness that comes from the good example of a praiseworthy and blameless life. They must completely remove from their lives the filth and uncleanness of  vice. Their upright lives must make them like the salt of the earth." (St. John of Capistrano) 

We are privileged to be invited to the banquet table of the Lord. We are aware how unworthy we are to receive the Body and Blood of Christ. But, since it is the will of the Lord that we receive him in preparation for the eternal banquet in heaven that awaits us, Jesus makes us worthy. Like the person in the Gospel called to the wedding banquet, we must ware the appropriate wedding garment, given to us in baptism.  Before going to the table, if the wedding garment is filthy with the grime of sin, we must wash it in the mercy of God. 

For sin that separates from God, we have the Sacrament of Reconciliation. For sin that is not mortal, we have the penitential rite at the beginning of Mass. This is a grace moment in each Mass to ask forgiveness of our sins, so that can receive the Lord worthily.  Let us not presume on God's mercy. Rather, let us consciously and remorsefully avail ourselves of this grace.

 Today is the feast of St John Paul II. Here is a quote from him.

"It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is He who provoked you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is He who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is He who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle" (St John Paul II)

He is the begging and the end of our lives. We can seek true happiness only in and from the One who wants our eternal happiness. Things will only suffice for short lived, temporary, here-today-but-gone-tomorrow happiness. True friends can provide us with some joy, but only Jesus, our friend, will walk with us till the end. Friends and family can do so much and go so far. Only Jesus, who crossed over from this life into the next, will accompany us on that last leg of our journey into the future glory with God, as long as we are sharing in his life at that moment.

Homily: Thirtieth Sunday Year A

 

Reading 1: Last Sunday, we heard: “I am the Lord, your God. There is no other God besides me.” It was in this context that God revealed the Ten Commandments to his people, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The first three deal with our relationship with God directly. The other seven deal with our relationship with one another, especially the most vulnerable: aliens, widows, orphans, the poor and the needy. We are not to oppress, wrong, abuse or take advantage of those who are the most vulnerable in society.

 

We are to hear the cry of these people in their need. Because of our relationship with God we are to do all we can to help them. Why? God has shown his mercy and love to us.

 

God reminded the Israelites that they were once aliens, enslaved in a foreign land. God heard their cry and delivered them through mighty signs and wonders.  When the shoe is on the other foot how quickly they and we forget our own past. Who is God to you? What has God done for you? What does God ask of you?

 

Gospel: How did Jesus silenced the Sadducees? They had tried to trick and discredit Jesus concerning the resurrection from the dead, which they did not believe. Jesus turned the tables against them and showed them the absurdity of their thinking.

 

Now the Pharisees wanted to trap and discredit Jesus. Besides the Ten Commandments, over the centuries the religious leaders had burdened the people by imposing more than over 600 precepts. If they wanted to be righteous, the people had to keep all these precepts exactly.

 

When asked what was the greatest commandment, Jesus, who knew the Scriptures, sums up the Ten Commandments into two. Love God with your whole heart and love your neighbor.  Jesus, as a faithful Jew, knew and recited the great Schema several times during the day, keeping before him his relationship with God. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord alone is God. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and strength and your neighbor as you love yourself.”

 

This is the response Jesus give the Pharisees. In another Gospel, Jesus concludes: “Do this and you shall have eternal life.” Basically, Jesus was reminding them to keep first things first.

 

Our relationship with God can be simple or complicated by us. Everything boils down to our love God and our love of all others.  Why am I doing or saying what I am doing or saying? Is it out of a motive of love of God and love of others? That is the basic message of Jesus. Do everything out of true love. Doesn’t Jesus indicate one of the basic measurement that God will use at our judgment is love.  “What you do to the least, you do to me.”

 

Reading 2: Paul continues his letter to the Thessalonians. Last Sunday, Paul praised them for receiving the word he preached as truth, because they were convicted by the Holy Spirit.  Paul acted out of love in reaching out to them. They in turned acted out of love in their response. Here he expressed it by saying: “You became imitators of us and of the Lord, becoming a model for all believers.” They acted in love, because they were waiting the return of the Lord.

 

The way to simplify our complicated lives is to choose to love God and our neighbor in all that we do. 

"A moment of crisis is a moment of choice, it is a moment that puts us in front of the decisions we have to make. Everyone in life has had and will have moments of crisis: family crises, marriage crises, social crises, work crises, many crises… This pandemic is also a time of social crisis....This pandemic, too, is a moment of social crisis....In my land there is a saying that says: "When you go on horseback and you have to cross a river, please don't change horse in the middle of the river". In moments of crisis, be very firm in the conviction of the faith....In the moment of crisis there is perseverance, silence; stay where we are, still. This is not the time to make changes. It is the time of fidelity, of fidelity to God, of fidelity to the things [decisions] that we have taken from before. It is also the moment of conversion, because this fidelity will, yes, inspire us to make some changes for the good, not to distance us from the good...Moments of peace and moments of crisis. We Christians must learn to manage both. Both. Some spiritual fathers say that the moment of crisis is like going through the fire to become strong." (Pope Francis)  

In times of crisis and moments of not understanding, we need to make the words of Peter our own. Many of the disciples of Jesus had a crisis of faith over Jesus' teaching on the Eucharist. Many walked away. Peter's response was: "To whom shall we go. You have the words of everlasting life. We have come to believe that you are the Holy One of God."

In times of crisis we can turn to no one other than God and stay on course with him.

Thirtieth Sunday Gospel Year A

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them a scholar of the law tested him by asking, "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" 

· Last Sunday we reflected on one of the many times the leaders tested Jesus in order to trap him or discredit him. Here is another instance of the same.  While the question was valid, the intent was not.

· There were over 600 different laws that were proposed in living a life according to the covenant.  The question deals with priority.

He said to him "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments." 

· Love is the most fundamental law and command: love of God and love of others.

· Jesus recognized the Jewish practice of reciting the Shema at least three times a day. "Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might" (Deut 6:4-5). Jesus simplified it.  The command reflects the first three commandments of the Decalogue and roots them in the context of love.

· Then Jesus shows the importance of love of others, which is reflected in the last seven commandments of the Decalogue and again roots them in the context of love.

· In what concrete ways do we live out the word of Jesus in our daily life?

· It is easy to say we love everyone, but is our love sincere? Is it expressed in words or in deeds?

· What can we do this week to reflect the teaching of Christ in our daily lives? Can we become conscious of doing all things in love?

 

 Jesus says something in the Gospels that should cause us to pause and assess ourselves. In the Gospel of Luke we read this statement: "So it is when someone stores up treasures for himself instead of becoming rich in the things of God." (Lk 12:21) In another place, Jesus said: "Where your treasure is, there is your heart." In another place Jesus said: "What profit a man to gain the whole world but to lose his soul?"

We come into the world with nothing. We will leave this world with nothing. All our material possessions will be left behind. All that the world thought of me, will become a faded memory. How attentive are we in the things of God, the things that have everlasting value?  Our good deeds done in love do not save us, but they follow us into eternity. These good deeds reflect our gratitude to God for all he has done for us. Out of love, God saved us; out of love we respond. These are the ways we become rich in the things of God. Is it any wonder that God made love the only command he has given us? 

 "Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us  begin." (St Teresa of Calcutta)

How often we find ourselves out of sorts. Is it because we are living in the past, still looking backwards, not letting go our past deeds? Or is it because we are trying to live in the future, forgetting the future is not ours to control? All we have is the present moment. This is the moment of grace given to us by God. What is that grace, if not love.  What we do now will not change the past but it may impact our future. Love is simple but hard. Simple because anyone can love; hard because it calls us to die to self.