HOMILY LENT WEEK 01 01
Jesus, Justice, Love and Morality
(Lev 19:1-18; Ps 19; Mt 25:31-46)
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Why is it impossible to starve in a desert? Because you can always eat the “sand-which-is” under your feet!
The readings today are like a sandwich calling us to make justice our highest moral priority. They also reveal two surprising elements to our image of God.
In the book of Leviticus, the top slice of bread is holiness and the bottom one is love. The meat of this sandwich, according to Leviticus, tells us what love and holiness are all about: honesty, justice, fairness, respect and forgiveness.
Matthew, in the gospel, provides us with another sandwich. The top slice of bread in this case is Jesus on his throne of glory, while the bottom slice is eternal life. In between, Matthew describes what the criteria for eternal life is – charity pure and simple. Charity as feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty, visiting the sick, clothing the naked and visiting the incarcerated.
The first surprising element is that Jesus took an insignificant line out of the first reading (Lev 19:18, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”), and placed it on an equal level as the Great Shema of Judaism (“Love God with your whole being”). The newness of Jesus’ teaching is that loving our neighbor as we love our selves, is just as important as loving God. In fact, it may be the best way to love God. As Jesus also put it, “Whatever you do to the least of these, you do unto me.” St. Paul, in Galatians 5:14, picks up that teaching in an even more radical manner. For him, “The whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
The second surprising and striking element, especially given the focus of so many in the Church today on sexual morality, irregular marriages and the question of giving communion to those in civil marriages, is that there is no mention of any of these concerns in these readings!
Isn’t that interesting? Could there be a message here that we may have our priorities in the church slightly off target – so focused on matters of morality that we are excusing ourselves from taking more action in the messier area of social justice? Just a question to ponder.
Perhaps we should ponder both readings again with this perspective in mind?
The Eucharist is itself an experience of God’s unconditional love for us as sinners, through Word and Sacrament.
It also commissions us to go out and to live these readings – to act justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with our God.
We should be living out these readings as Jesus teaches us his justice , love and morality through his actions . Why we have to keep the law and commandment present in this world. This world is full of hatred, crimes, terrorist and disasters. All of us are sinners while being born on this earth; we are baptized into this Catholic community to wash away our original sins. But, we still need to obey the justice on this earth because God is the creator. He created these commandments for us to follow and understand our actions are good and evil. Whatever we are doing is it against God or hurting ourselves and hurting our neighbors . We need to figure out what is good and evil that’s why we need to do to live out the readings and the word of God. We need to learn to have forgiveness and to love one another as we love ourselves because God loves us whether we are sinners or not. Lastly, we should continue to experience his unconditional love as we strengthen our faith to walk the humble path with God. Amen. The word of the Lord Thanks be to God.
We should consider offering ourselves and time to help the poor , the sick and needy by visiting them and donating to charities. This is what we should do during the Lent season. Thanks again Bishop Sylvain for the lovely messages .