Bible
Study: Leviticus 19, 1 to 2 and 11 to 15.
Matthew 25, 31 to 46).
Our first
reading this morning summarizes the meaning of holiness. To be holy as God is
holy is to love your neighbour as yourself. This entails treating others as you
would love to be treated; you shall not steal, you shall not lie, you shall not
cheat or deceive others, you shall not oppress your fellow human being or
refuse to pay for work done, you shall not treat a physically challenged person
with disrespect, you shall not harbour hatred in your heart, you shall not take
vengeance or bear grudges against anyone.
You may be
wondering how possible it is to do all this, isn’t it? The key to be holy as
God is holy is to see the face of Christ in everyone and especially the poor
and the suffering. Hence Jesus gave us the parable of judgement day in the
Gospel passage. On that day, Christ will welcome us into paradise because we
fed him when he was hungry, we clothed him when he was naked, we opened our
house to him when he was homeless, we visited him in the hospital and gave him strength
in prison.
True
poverty is not lack of money but lack of care and sympathy to the needy.
Pope
Francis in the message for Lent says: “The real poor are revealed as those who
refuse to see themselves as such. They consider themselves rich, but they are
actually the poorest of the poor. This is because they are slaves to sin, which
leads them to use wealth and power not for the service of God and others, but
to stifle within their hearts the profound sense that they too are only poor
beggars. The greater their power and wealth, the more this blindness and
deception can grow. It can even reach the point of being blind to Lazarus
begging at their doorstep (cf. Luke 16, 20 to 21). Lazarus, the poor man, is a
figure of Christ, who through the poor pleads for our conversion. As such, he
represents the possibility of conversion which God offers us and which we may
well fail to see. Such blindness is often accompanied by the proud illusion of
our own omnipotence, which reflects in a sinister way the diabolical “you will
be like God” (Gen 3, 5) which is the root of all sin.
Christ is
not far from you, he is not only found in beautiful tabernacles and magnificent
cathedrals, neither is he restricted to pilgrimage centres. He is very close to
you, in the face of that child who is crying relentlessly, in the face of that
man sitting by your gate who has not eaten since yesterday, in the face of boy
with a terrible sore unable to go to the hospital for lack of funds. Touch
Christ in the poor, adore him in the poor, worship and pray to him in the poor
and he would be there for you when you need him.
Let us
Pray:
Lord
Jesus, cure me of my blindness that I may see your face in the poor around me. Amen.
God bless you. Good morning. Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is
well with you. Happy new week.
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