Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year A 26 Oct 2014

News: put one hour back

1. Everything you need to know about the clocks going back

   
   

   Daylight saving time (DST) is the biannual event when we forget whether to put our clocks one hour back or one hour forward, and whether this ...

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year A 26 Oct 2014
Mass Homily by Fr. Raymond

 

October, falling leaves  

Saint Matthew 22:34-40. 

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees  ...

The Gospel scene opens with a collusion between the Scribes and the Pharisees to get the better of Jesus.  As far as they were concerned he was just a young upstart of a wandering preacher who was stealing the respect of the crowds away from themselves who were, in their own eyes, the true guardians of  Israel’s law.  Normally these two groups hated each other and would have nothing to do with each other.  They both had different theological viewpoints, especially about the resurrection of the body.  The wily St Paul used this difference to his own advantage when they both accused him at his trial before the Romans of being a trouble maker.

However, Jesus it seems,  doesn’t take this matter any further because the question they asked of him was such an important one and he didn’t want to confuse the issue of a basic answer to a basic question, even though the question wasn’t asked in good faith.  They were only trying to set a trap for him. They knew very well what was the greatest commandment: the commandment that came from the Book of Deuteronomy: “ Thou shalt love the lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul and all thy strength”.

This basic commandment, even though it is pre-christian, seems at first sight to be impossible of fulfilment even in the Christian era!  Who could ever aspire to love the lord God with all his heart and all his soul and all his strength?  Jesus immaculate Mother herself would seem to be the only one who could aspire to such heights.  But God doesn’t ask the impossible of us.  At the same time as giving us this commandment he gives us an inner power, not only to fulfil it but even to surpass it.  He gives us the gift of his divine spirit poured into our hearts so that we now have his own divine power within us with which to love.  By the gift of this Spirit we are caught up into the very ambit of the Divine life of Love itself.