Sunday, October 31, 2021

 

THE THIRTY-FIRST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

(Deuteronomy 6: 2-6; Hebrews 7: 23-28; Mark 12: 28-34)

My friends love me. Thank God! They want me to have a long life. They give me different foods to extend my years. One friend has given me several bottles of agave which, she says, has many life-giving properties. Another has given me a bottle of apple cider vinegar. She says that one ladle daily resists most diseases. I am grateful to these people for their care and don't doubt the efficacy of their remedies. But I prefer to trust the advice of Moses in the first reading to be sure of many years.

Moses says that the people of Israel can prolong their lives if they fear the Lord by keeping his commands. Above all, they must recognize that there is only one God, who is “the Lord.” They must not worship any other god, be it a planet, an artisan object, an emperor, or an ideology such as the primacy of money. These things are only creatures of secondary importance.

Then Moses proclaims the supreme commandment. People are to love God with all of their being. This command may leave us with questions: How can love be mandated? Isn't love a passion that we feel or not feel? And how can one love an entity that seems as remote as God in heaven? The answers to these concerns require meditation.

The second reading gives us the key to the last question. He calls Jesus the Son of God who possesses the same divine nature. Jesus shares our human nature as well. Therefore, we know him as a brother like us in everything except sin. Therefore, we should not consider God as residing beyond the clouds but closer to us than even our neighbors. The Israelites had a sense of God's presence in the temple. However, this presence was completely spiritual. They did not claim, as we do, that they have touched him with their hands.

By referring to the first reading, Jesus in the gospel instructs us how to love him. We have to love him with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength. This is a large order. Somehow we have to find ways to fulfill what he says. The heart is the seat of the emotions, among which is desiring or longing. We long for Jesus Christ when we think of what a wonderful person he is. He dared to touch lepers in order to heal them. He could, as a famous song says, walk on water and calm the stormy sea. He knew everything about the Samaritan woman without ever having met her. Who wouldn't yearn to know him?

The soul serves as the source of animation for the human person. Loving Jesus with all our soul means that we live for him. We will accomplish this task when we make it both the model and the purpose of our life. This is what San Martín de Porres did. This Black saint from the Americas had great devotion to Christ crucified. Testimonies of his life include stories of him prostrating before the crucified with outstretched arms in the shape of a cross. More to the point, Martin like Jesús always showed mercy to the poor, the sick, and the hungry.

The mind makes it possible for us to think. Loving Jesus with all our mind requires that we study to know him better. Mainly, this is a “lectio divina”, the meditation on the gospel. It also encompasses the vast literature on the Bible and the Church. With many great people, the more we know of them, the less we appreciate them. Revelations of the private lives of John Kennedy and Martin Luther King, for example, have tainted their character. But not so with Jesus. The more we know him, the more we will love him.

We love Jesus with all our strength when we sacrifice ourselves for his sake. This does not mean so much that we waste our energy on pilgrimages, although they are good exercises. As everyone knows, Jesus identifies himself in the Gospel with "the least of his brothers." That is why we love Jesus when we care for those in need. In Dallas there is a couple from Mexico who have developed a jail ministry. Every week they visit the incarcerated sharing the love of Christ.

A famous poem says: “How do I love you? Let me count the ways ”. So the poet describes her love for her husband as high and deep, pure and passionate. Although her words are very beautiful, they only say that Jesus prescribes for our love for God. May we love him with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength!