DISPENSING GOD'S LOVE AND MERCY


MONDAY OF FIRST WEEK OF LENT

Levit 19:1-2,11-18; Ps 19:8-10,15; Mt 25:31-46

Called to be Channel of God’s Blessing

The precept of charity is the summary and essence of all other commandments of God. It is before us today for our medication and practice. The passage from Leviticus is the application of charity in our relationship with our neighbours and other people. The core of the precept of charity is our love for God. As the scriptures explain to us, left on our own, we can never love God because we do not know him in his essence. We only know that he exists through the creation, which is the effect of his word. Charity is the greatest of the theological virtues because it represents God in us. Thus, God gives us this great gift that is himself after purifying us of sins. The birth of charity in our soul is the gift of God’s Spirit to us at our profession of faith in him. Justified by faith, as Saint Paul explained in his letter to the Romans, which we read yesterday, we receive the communication of his Holy Spirit in our hearts, giving us a spiritual birth as children of God in his Son Jesus Christ. With our spiritual sight opened towards God, we can see and learn of God. Knowing Him as his children in the Son, we can live in communion with him. Without this revealed knowledge of God lived out in our spiritual life, it is impossible to obey the precept of charity.

Charity, as it relates to our neighbours, reflects what we have known about God in our dealings with them. So, the practice of the precept of charity is a proclamation of our knowledge of God and communion with him to others. The breaking of the commandment of love is a refusal to be a channel of God’s communication of himself to others. We love others genuinely in so far as we obey the promptings of the Spirit of God within us. Only on this basis of God acting within and through us can he demand that we be holy as he is. “Speak to the whole community of the sons of Israel and say to them: ‘Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.” The commandments ensure that we do not impede His Holy Spirit acting in us, united as we are to him in our profession of faith in his word. To steal, deal deceitfully or fraudulently, swear falsely by God’s name, exploit or rob, withhold labourer’s wage, etc., are such ways of withholding God from others.

As the Psalmist reveals, these laws help us enter into the Spirit of God and participate in his divine life. “The law of the Lord is perfect it revives the soul. The rule of the Lord is to be trusted, it gives wisdom to the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, they gladden the heart. The command of the Lord is clear, it gives light to the eyes.” Our Lord’s foretelling of the nature of the last judgment confirms our understanding of the precept of charity as God’s indwelling in our souls. He tells us of his plan to separate the sheep from the goats. The sheep follow the pattern of life of the Lamb of God, who is a pure communication of God’s grace of salvation to all men. The goats refused to give up their lives and thereby obstruct God’s communication of his infinite love to others. By identifying with everyone needing God’s love, Jesus confirms our vocation to be the channels of God's love, as he was to all men. “I tell you solemnly, in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me.” From this revelation of the last judgment, we understand that the failure to love results solely from our lack of attention to the life of Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord.

Let us pray: Convert us, O God our Saviour, and instruct our minds by heavenly teaching, that we may benefit from the works of Lent. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. 

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