31ST SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME
This weekend we celebrate the 31st Sunday of ordinary time and last Thursday we celebrated the feast of All Saints. Each of us are called to be saints and the feast of All saints honours all those unsung heroes of the faith who are saints even though the Church has not Canonised them. They are the men and women who “hung in there” despite all sorts of obstacles, to faithfully believing in God and His Son, Jesus. All of us have this “universal call to holiness.” What must we to do in order to join the company of the saints in heaven? We “must follow in Jesus footsteps and try to conform ourselves to his image as we seek to do the will of the Father in all things In this way, the holiness of the People of God will grow into an abundant harvest of good, as is admirably shown by the life of so many saints in Church history”.
Our Gospel reading this weekend is all about the first and greatest commandments of the law. In his reply to the scribe Jesus makes it clear that you cannot compose summaries of the Law while forgetting love of neighbour.
The scribe is pleased with Jesus’ reply and adds his own point, that the love of God and neighbour is far more important than any ritual worship. In supporting the scribe’s addition, Jesus places the demands of liturgy far below the demands of active love.The transformation caused by God’s love is so profound that it flows from us towards God and is expressed in love of neighbour. Like Moses, Jesus calls us to love God with our entire being because his life and death are a manifestation of God’s love for each of us. The scribe in this Gospel states that the law of love of God and neighbour is greater than any of the religious observances and laws concerning sacrifices. Revered Temple worship and sacrifice must take second place to the observance and sacrifice that comes with loving God and neighbour. Jesus says that the scribe has answered wisely about the superiority of love over any sacrifice and then says to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God. Our God is the God of history. Our God is the creator of all that is. We are God’s dream. Our living with God is not only in our places of worship and community. God is with us in the market place, on the factory floor, in the politics of life. Our God is with us on the streets, in homeless shelters, in the hospitals and mental institutions that seek to heal us.
As a matter of fact God is with us wherever we are and in whatever we are doing in his name. Our lives are not divisible into secular and religious though some might want it that way. We are called like the pharisee in this Gospel story to love the Lord our God and our neighbour as well and to bring that love out into the world where we are.
Fullerton T 