Live Lovely, Love Warmly!

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

St. Gerard Majella Church

Baton Rouge, LA, USA

Sunday, October 26, 2014

Christians have always had a problem of how to tell the world who they are. At some periods in history and still in some places in the world, Christians have put on uniforms that sell their identity to the world. Think of the various uniforms used by various Societies of Consecrated Life, which distinguishes consecrated people from other Christians, and which also distinguishes a Religious Order from others. These religious garment called habits are still being used today.  There are also times when we use badges, banners, pinups, signs etc to distinguish and show who we are. We are symbolic beings who use symbols to express our faith. Jesus himself wrestled with the question of how to distinguish his followers from non-believers around them. But his prescriptions go deeper than the externals. For Jesus, the essential mark of distinction between Christians and non-Christians is not in the way they dress but in the way they love. What marks us out is not what our banners, badges, pinups, stickers say, but how we love.

In today’s gospel taken from Matthew 22:34-40, a scholar of the law approached Jesus with a very good question: “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” In answering his question, Jesus gives a profound definition of religion: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

Brothers and sisters, love is the Christian identity. It is the Christian uniform. If we are not wearing the habit of love, then we are not authentic. Love is the essence of our Christian Faith. Jesus defines the Christian religion as the love of God which is demonstrated in the love of others. Christianity is not only a faith believed, but also a faith lived and demonstrated. To Jesus, the definition of authentic religion is love- love of God and love of the people of God. He wants us to love God with all the emotion, with all the will, and with all the intellect. God should come first, second, and third in everything we do or plan to do. Everything we plan to do should be weighed on the scale of God. Loving the Lord with all your heart means allowing God to control and direct your emotions; loving God with all your soul means letting your will conform to the will of God; loving the Lord with all your mind means letting your intellect be directed by God. Jesus wants us to surrender our emotions, our will and our intellect to God. Our emotion should feel God; our decisions should be in consonance with the will of God; our thoughts should think God. Simply put, feel God; desire God, and think God!

Now, our love of God should translate into the love of others. In John 13: 35, Jesus says to his disciples, “If you love one another, everyone will know that you are my disciples.” Love makes God present among us. love enthrones the reign of God in our human family. It wipes away tears of frustration, hunger, sickness and hopelessness from the sufferers. Love breaks the chain reaction of evil and replaces it with a chain reaction of good. Love weakens evil. Love makes the whole of creation new. Love removes mourning or sadness. Even in suffering, love from others lightens the burden. 

Jesus wants us to love God with all we’ve got and to love our neighbor as well! According to Pope Benedict XVI, “The love of God and the love of neighbor have become one; in the least of the brethren we find Jesus himself, and in Jesus we find God.” 

Live justly, love warmly, Be happy!