Homily 31st Sunday OT 3rd November 2024

At times religion seems unnecessarily complicated. Some Catholics get so tied up in rosaries, novenas, scapulars, candles, holy water, statues, and such that they sometimes lose sight of what is important. The ancient Jews had a similar problem.

In St. Mark’s Gospel today, one of the scribes came up and asked Jesus a question that the people asked Rabbis often: Which is the first of the commandments?

It is an honest question and Jesus answers: You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: You must love your neighbour as yourself.

Jesus’ questioner like many of his fellow scribes, was a good man whom Jesus declared to be not far from the Kingdom of God.

Love of God and neighbour must begin with proper love of self. Love of oneself though important, is taken for granted. In the theological order of priority, God and neighbour come first. In the psychological order underneath we have sufficient self-esteem, respect, and love for ourselves, we can go no further.

The word ‘Love’ is bandied about so much in our culture that it often loses its full meaning. Love is many beautiful things. It is not only what makes the world go round, its what makes the journey worthwhile.

But love is also demanding. To love means to go beyond ourselves, truly to face another person, to rise above our own need, to stretch out to someone, to see the faces of those who desperately need our love, to rick discomfort, to give our time and energy – indeed, ourselves, to others.

Love involves nothing less than everything. I can’t love you part time. I can’t love you just when I am in a good mood. I can’t love you just because it makes me feel good.

Love has to do with feelings, it’s true, but it has far more to do with commitment, challenge, and letting go.

Wholehearted loving isn’t a matter of ‘once and for all’ and is then done with, or something that happens overnight. It has to do with being there for the other. Furthermore, without being loved its almost impossible to love.

We sometimes fear that if we offer our all, too much might be asked, something terrible demanded.

The truth is that we human beings only are truly ‘human beings’ when we give ourselves away in love. Love is central in all moral decisions. Real life examples go to family, workplace, neighbourhood, social involvement, Church, school, citizenship, and even the international level.

There are in the lives of each of us many examples of how we can do better at our central command of loving. Perhaps it is time for all of us to redouble our efforts at loving God and loving neighbour.

Fr Andrew