Reflection for 30th
Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A
(Ex 22:21-27, 1 Thes 1:5-10, Mt
23:34-40)
1.0. Love at Its Source
God is love. He is the source of love. In the first reading today,
His commandments to the Israelites reflect His nature as love, “For I am
compassionate.” The chosen people of God were instructed to imbibe this love in
relating with one another.
In the Gospel the Pharisees, who
never loved Jesus came again to question Him. “Princes plot together against
God and His anointed...He who is enthroned in the heavens laughs, God is making
a mockery of them” (Ps 2:2-4). One of them asked, “Teacher, which is the
greatest commandment of the law?” Jesus answered them kindly, and even more. He summarized the law and taught a new lesson with a new horizon of understanding
for all ages.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your
soul, and with all your mind. “This is the greatest and first commandment.”
This is our call; it is the reason why God created us. We cannot put anything
between our relationship with God. Loving God must be the first response of our
heart in love. We must recognize in our hearts that undivided and unequal
impulse of love towards God. God is the source of love, and must be loved first
if we ever want to love at all.
2.0. The Transfer of Love
You shall love your neighbour as yourself. This is where we
encounter difficulty. And that was one of the reasons for the laws in the first
reading, to overcome the obstacles in loving our neighbour. Jesus opens up this
new horizon where we come to understand that love of God is not separated from
love of neighbour. “Anyone who says, ‘I love God’ and hates his brother is a
liar...” (1 Jn 4:20-21). However, loving the other as ourselves is not the
projection of our weak selves to others. It does not imply the transfer of our
subjective disposition, such that we tend to reduce people to ourselves. It is
relating to others with that self that has been consumed by love of God. And since
God is the source of love, our love for our neighbour brings something of God
to them. Through our words and actions, God’s love is transferred to others.
We can now love one another
genuinely, no matter who they are or where they are from, because the love of
God has been poured into our hearts (cf. Rm 5:5). This out pouring of God’s
love in the Holy Spirit has become a new law written, not on tablet of stones,
but in our hearts (cf. 2 Cor 3:3. Heb 10:16). And the ultimate gift of His love
that God has given us is Jesus Christ. “For God so loved the world that He gave
His only Son..”(Jn 3:16).
3.0. The First Neighbour
Jesus is God and Man. In Him God
has visited His people (cf. Lk 7:16). He is that living point of encounter
between love of God and neighbour. And He unites the two and makes it possible
for us to possess them as one. As the
First Born of all creation, Jesus is our first Neighbour! Though in Him
dwells the fullness of divinity, still He loves us with a human heart. It is
Him who engineers this love in us. Therefore, to love our neighbour as ourselves
begins with Jesus. It is through Him that our human love encounters God. At that
point of encounter where our human heart grabs the person of Jesus as neighbour, is when we begin to the
journey to love our neighbour as commanded. “You must love one another just as
I have loved you” (Jn 13:34).
“Anyone who has seen me has seen
the Father” (Jn 14:9). In Jesus the Unseen God has revealed Himself. Our undivided
love in Christ Jesus consumes all our heart, soul and mind. And this renews us,
making us to assume the image of Jesus. The
Love of Christ overwhelms us...that we live no longer for ourselves, but for
him who dies and was raised to life for us (cf. 2 Cor 5:14-15). So we love
others with that self which has been redeemed by Christ. Hence, the first and
perfect Neighbour we love is Jesus. In this way we can love people even in the
midst of their shortfalls. Since we have the one perfect Neighbour, we can
endure the imperfections of others.
4.0. The
Love Encounter
On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets. All the
blessings of the law and the promises of prophecy now find their completeness
in Christ Jesus our Lord (cf. Mt 5:17). Accepting Jesus as our First Neighbour,
in whom and through whom we Love God and neighbour, becomes an encounter of
blessings. Here is offered an assurance of all prophetic future.
Love conquers all. Loving God and
neighbour in and through Jesus Christ is our victory over every obstacle to
love and observance of the law. Such love that is first touched by Christ
cannot be mere emotional. Encountering each other in love has become a living
expression of our ultimate encounter in Jesus. Therefore, we love each other
basically because of Jesus Christ.
Such loving encounter amongst us
is a living response, and it is life-giving. It brings freedom and refreshes
our lives.
Happy Sunday!
_____________________________________
Fr
Jude Chinwenwa Nwachukwu, C.Ss.R
St
Paul’s Catholic Church,
Gwagwalada,
Abuja
Nigeria.
October
29, 2017.
