We are to love God and our neighbor with all the strength of our being, as the scholar of the Law answers Jesus in this week’s Gospel.
This command is nothing remote or mysterious—it’s already written in our hearts, in the book of Sacred Scripture. “You have only to carry it out,” Moses says in this week’s First Reading.
Jesus tells His interrogator the same thing: “Do this and you will live.”
The scholar, however, wants to know where he can draw the line. That’s the motive behind his question, “Who is my neighbor?”
In his compassion, the Samaritan in Jesus’ parable reveals the boundless mercy of God, Who came down to us when we were fallen in sin, close to dead, unable to pick ourselves up.
Jesus is “the image of the invisible God,” this week’s Epistle tells us. In Him, the love of God has come very near to us. By the “blood of His Cross”—by bearing His neighbors’ sufferings in His own body, being Himself stripped and beaten and left for dead—He saved us from the bonds of sin and reconciled us to God and to one another.
Like the Samaritan, He pays the price for us, heals the wounds of sin, pours out on us the oil and wine of the sacraments, and entrusts us to the care of His Church until He comes back for us.
Because His love has known no limits, ours cannot either. We are to love as we have been loved, to do for others what He has done for us, joining all things together in His Body, the Church.
We are to love like the singer of this week’s Psalm—like those whose prayers have been answered, like those whose lives has been saved, who have known the time of His favor, have seen God in His great mercy turn toward us.
This is the love that leads to eternal life, the love Jesus commands today of the scholar and of each of us: “Go and do likewise.”
Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Matt 6:33 Everything we need to survive but more importantly God our Father’s Kingdom on earth will be opened to us as well and we will indeed see sights and wonders! For what purpose to our end? To be sent into world and lead all those who will listen back to His loving embrace. His Kingdom come His will be done.
We must be of one mind just as we worship the One and Only triune God. One Body, One mind, One Spirit. And so each day we awake in prayer to hear His Word for us so that we might fortify ourselves against the wiles of the devil who seeks to scatter our minds and hearts! Yes even the mention of devil may irk us and cause us to shut our ears as many do not want to believe that he exists. Jesus Himself reminds us today, ‘Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; fear him rather who can destroy both body and soul in hell.’
But the thing is what is there for us to be afraid? For so long as our heart seeks the Lord our God, and desires to be with Him in His Kingdom; He is already with us. For our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ had already come to save us from all sin. And so if we fall and are truly repentant then when we turn to Him, He will restore and free us! He will give us the grace to resist sin and temptation so that we can go out into world and help our fellow sisters and brother back unto the righteous path.
Here I am Lord, send me. Amen
First reading
Isaiah 6:1-8 ·
Isaiah’s lips cleansed with a burning coal
In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord of Hosts seated on a high throne; his train filled the sanctuary; above him stood seraphs, each one with six wings: two to cover its face, two to cover its feet, and two for flying.
And they cried out to one another in this way,
‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts.
His glory fills the whole earth.’
The foundations of the threshold shook with the voice of the one who cried out, and the Temple was filled with smoke. I said:
‘What a wretched state I am in! I am lost,
for I am a man of unclean lips
and I live among a people of unclean lips,
and my eyes have looked at the King, the Lord of Hosts.’
Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding in his hand a live coal which he had taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. With this he touched my mouth and said:
‘See now, this has touched your lips,
your sin is taken away,
your iniquity is purged.’
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying:
‘Whom shall I send? Who will be our messenger?’
I answered, ‘Here I am, send me.’
Gospel
Matthew 10:24-33
Everything now hidden will be made clear
Jesus instructed the Twelve as follows: ‘The disciple is not superior to his teacher, nor the slave to his master. It is enough for the disciple that he should grow to be like his teacher, and the slave like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, what will they not say of his household?
‘Do not be afraid of them therefore. For everything that is now covered will be uncovered, and everything now hidden will be made clear. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the daylight; what you hear in whispers, proclaim from the housetops.
‘Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; fear him rather who can destroy both body and soul in hell. Can you not buy two sparrows for a penny? And yet not one falls to the ground without your Father knowing. Why, every hair on your head has been counted. So there is no need to be afraid; you are worth more than hundreds of sparrows.
‘So if anyone declares himself for me in the presence of men, I will declare myself for him in the presence of my Father in heaven. But the one who disowns me in the presence of men, I will disown in the presence of my Father in heaven.’
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