PRAYERS FOR ALL SPECIAL OCCASIONS LIKE BIRTHDAY, RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS, FAREWELL DAYS, WELCOME PRAYERS ETC
Friday, 27 October 2023
30TH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR A 23
30th SUNDAY, 29 OCTOBER 2023, EXODUS 22. 21-27; 1 THES 1.5c-10; MATTHEW 22. 34-40
Focus: Love with a double focus!
Indicative: In a world which is both love-barren and love- hungry, which abuses love so much and also needs it so much, true love alone is the greatest remedy
1. Love is the greatest commandment:
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these”
2. Love is the summary and quintessence of all discipleship. It is the supreme command of the Lord to every disciple, a Law which all must obey and follow, an indispensable norm which must guide the whole life of a disciple.
3. Jesus puts together love of God and love of neighbour as one single commandment. In fact, they are not two separate commandments which can subsist, one without the other. Rather they are two inseparable aspects of one and the same Law of love, and are mutually inclusive.
4. Love of God and love of neighbour support and complete each other. One without the other is incomplete and deficient. They are also mutually authenticating, in the sense, that one reveals and bears witness to the other. One cannot claim to love God totally but refuse or fail to love the other. In the same way, one cannot love the other wholeheartedly but has no love for God:
5. “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us” (1 Jn 4. 12); “God is love.
6. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them” (1 Jn 4. 16); “Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar.
7. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister” (1 Jn 4. 20-21).
8. Now, How to love God? In what measures?
The love that is demanded of a disciple is Total and Entire. It is with the totality of one’s faculties, capacities, intentionality, and will. It is with the whole being, the entire person.
9. There are no portions, no fractions, no proportions, no concessions, no conditions, no percentages, no ratios. The command to love is imperative and not facultative. Jesus is never convinced or satisfied with half-measures.
10. True it is, one cannot expect perfection soon, as discipleship is a journey of progression and maturation on the road of perfection. But this does not mean that a disciple can continue with compromising steps.
11. Jesus is very clear about the uncompromising nature of discipleship. “One is either for him or against him”. There is no neutral stand. “You cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve both God and wealth”.
12. To follow Jesus is a fundamental option. In an authentic discipleship, there is no room for compromises or convenient adjustments. In true and full love for God, there is authenticity, intensity, depth and dedication.
13. Discipleship is loving God in full measures. It is to love God without measure and without reserve.
14. Then, How to love the neighbour? In what manner?
15. With regard to loving the neighbour, the manner in which one must love, is indicated. “Love your neighbour as you love yourself”. Everyone loves one’s own self.
16. Here we need not enter into discussion about self, about its quality whether positive or negative, about Jesus’ injunction to deny self, etc. What matters in the context is the fact that there is self-love in everyone.
17. The only difference between a true disciple and not-a disciple is, the disciple sublimates his self-love to God’s love which constantly controls and regulates his self-love, so that the end result is positive and productive.
18. The reference to the “Golden Rule” (Lk 6. 31) prescribed by Jesus can be of help in this context: “Do unto others what you want them do to you”.
19. Certainly everyone wants to be understood, accepted, respected, loved, comforted, appreciated, encouraged and supported. If so, to love the other as one loves one’s own self demands that we should also understand, accept and respect others.
Imperative: Let love be genuine and deep. Let love be our passion and devotion. Let it be our norm and test. Because then, the society can be healed.
(Reflection 2)
Punch line: Nothing greater!
Guideline: In a world that is often love-starving and love-hungry, love alone is the fittest and greatest response remedy to repair the damaged face of life and to resurge it with a fresh glow
1. A lawyer in the gospel asks Jesus a question, “What is the greatest commandment in the law?” Jesus’ answer is Love. It is double-packed: love for God and love for the neighbour. It is a love for God with the totality of the person, that is, heart and soul, and mind.
2. Therefore, we should love God with all and the fullness of our faculties. There cannot be portions or fractions, or conditions or concessions. It is to love God without measure and reserve. It means that God becomes our all and our whole.
3. This means that God becomes our topmost priority. He is not a mere abstract concept, not an idea or issue about which we have some knowledge. God is not merely an intellectual concern.
4. God becomes a concern of life, someone very personal, someone for whom we nurture profound feeling and sentiment, someone with whom we relate passionately and intimately. Thus, God becomes a vital concern of emotion, experience, relation, and commitment.
4. This invites us then to check our frequent tendencies to make God more an object of devotions and religious activities. Instead, we must discover and experience Him as a subject who loves us and needs to be loved.
5. As long as God is treated as an alien and pushed out of the inner circles of the heart and the territories of life, love for God will remain only shallow and fails to affect us.
6. The commandment of love will be incomplete if we close it only with love for God. It necessarily opens up to love for neighbour. Love for God never encloses itself within itself. It is not an individual affair with God.
7. Rather, love for God finds its concrete expression in love for neighbour. A love for God that does not lead one to love for neighbour is shallow and can even be a farce.
8. This love for neighbour must be such that it loves the other as one loves his own self. In other words, in a true love of neighbour, there is no ego, no ego-interests. It is selfless.
Lifeline: The world that feels sick, and wounded, can be healed only with the power of love. While love for God elevates our spirits to a heavenly life, love for others commits us down to the earth
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