Thirtieth Sunday In Ordinary Time (Year A)

Ex 22.20-26;  
I Thess 1.5-10;  
Mt 22.34-40

May the Lord strengthen us, and increase our faith, hope, and charity, so that we will make his love known as he has commanded us

In today’s reading from St Matthew, the Pharisees had discovered that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees so they gathered themselves together and went to him and one of them asked him a fundamental question, saying, “Master which is the greatest commandment of the law’”? In answering, this question Our Lord tells the entire group of Pharisees the two greatest commandments: firstly, we must love the Lord our God with our whole being; secondly, we must love our neighbor as we love ourselves.  Jesus says that all the commandments of the Law are supported by these two.  The great theologian Saint Thomas Aquinas points out that the second commandment, to love our neighbour, is a consequence and result of the first; because when man is truly loved, then God is loved, for man was made in the image and likeness of God.  If we genuinely love God, we will also love our neighbors, because by roots they are all our brothers and sisters; we are all children of the same Father, and we are all redeemed by the same blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Saint John says in his First Letter, ‘This commandment we also have from Him, that he who loves God should love his brother also.’  This love of our neighbor for God’s sake is clear proof that we love God; Saint John continues, ‘If anyone says, “I love God”, and hates his brother, he is a liar.’
 
Our Lord gives us guidelines for living this love; when he explains further, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”, he shows us the bond between our love for ourselves and our love for others. And both must always be founded on our first love, our love of God.  We have all experienced one way or another the joy that comes from sharing with someone we love.  And the greatest possession that we have, that we can share with others is life; not merely the life of our mortal bodies, but the eternal life which we know in God.  There is nothing greater that we can give to someone who does not yet know God’s love.  That is why the very last commandment that Our Lord gave to his disciples was this: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” In that one sentence, Our Lord gave the authority for all the Church’s missionary activity; it is not an optional extra, but the very last commandment of Christ before he returned to sit at the right hand of the Father. Not, of course, that he has left us, for the commandment concludes with his promise, “Lo I am with you always, to the close of the age.”
 
So what are we to teach to all nations? Christ says, “Teach them to observe all that I have commanded you”; and in today’s gospel, we have heard that ‘all that I have commanded you’ is summed up in loving God and loving our neighbor.  In teaching us how to love God, and how to learn about God’s love for us, Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.”  And Jesus commands the Church to make this known: He is the only path that leads to God.  He is the truth that is revealed, He is the eternal life given to us by the Godhead. All the faithful have this mandate to proclaim until the end of time, by both word and example, the faith that they have received. This is the mission to which Christ calls all of us; we are to continue His work, to teach men and women the truths concerning God, and to teach everyone that we must all make God’s truths our own.  Christ promises He will be with the Church in this mission; He has sent the Holy Spirit to guide and protect the Church, to make her prosper in her work for His kingdom.
 
St Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians also affirms that ‘our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You became imitators of us and of the Lord, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere.’  Saint Paul’s joy in the behavior of the Church in Thessalonica is evident, joy that by living the Christian life they have worked to spread the good news of Christ. His preaching and example, and now their preaching and example, have borne the fruit of conversion, which is the whole purpose of Gospel preaching.
 
That was its purpose two thousand years ago; what of now?  It is still the same, and the need is still with us.  
In the Book of Exodus, we read about caring for those who are aliens, widows, and orphans and when lending money to be fair and reasonable. It was so important to the Jewish people, that the poor were taken care of, that they had laws to guide them in this regard. They left some grain in the fields after the harvest so that the poor could glean the leftover grain to sustain them.Today, we still have the poor and we give in different ways through donations to many organizations who assist those who are in need. In recent months we have had opportunities to help others due to natural disasters and war. Opportunities to give a voice to those with whom others have turned a deaf ear. Opportunities to assist those in our own communities, parishes, or neighborhoods and the opportunities to make our nation and the world a better place.

A large percentage of the world’s population has not heard the Gospel message or quite often needs Re-evangelization. What we are called to participate in is the mission to pass on our faith to others.  We remember last week was mission Sunday, how far are we contributing to ensure Christ’s mission goes further? We cannot all travel overseas, and go to the places and people who need the way to eternal life in God that we have, but we can share our news with them through the organizations of the Church.  Principal among these organizations is the APF, the Association for the Propagation of the Faith, a Pontifical society that is the official support organization for the missions.  To carry out Our Lord’s command to go and teach all nations, several things are needed. Firstly, there have to be men and women, priests, sisters, and lay people, who respond to God’s call and travel the world to bring the Good News of Christ to those who hunger for this gospel.  And these missionaries need support from us: financial support may be the most obvious need, but it is not the only one.  Prayer is equally important.   The Holy Father has said to those of us who cannot go overseas on the missions, ‘Where you cannot go with your word, you can go through your prayers and your sacrifices.’  Those who do work on our behalf all say that the knowledge that we at home are supporting them in prayer is a tremendous help to them.  It should not surprise us when we think about it properly, that the saint whom the Church has called the patron of missions is St Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower, who spent her entire adult life in a Carmelite monastery.  She offered her life for the salvation of souls and the spreading of the faith in the missions.  We too can pray for the missions, that God’s word will be made known to the many millions who are longing to hear it.  Healing is what our neighborhoods, parishes, communities, state and country need at this time. Imagine what the evening news would be like if kindness, mercy, and compassion were the headlines.
In this way, we will fulfill Our Lord’s commandment to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Fr Joseph Osho