First Reading - 2 Corinthians 8:1-9
Gospel - Matthew 5:43-48
'Love' is often equated with a feeling. The readings of today remind us that 'love' is more than any feeling, it's a mode of life for every Christian. Love is manifested in every action that we do in the imitation of our Lord. The readings of today invite us to imitate our Lord in His love.
The first reading draws our attention to a generous act of love. Paul cites the example of the Christians in Macedonia who were so keen to generously share their goods with the needy people in Rome who were struggling for their survival during the famine. Moreover, they were still more willing to help the people. Paul exhorts the Christians in Corinth to imitate the generous act of love of the Christians in Macedonia. Infact, Paul compares the generous act of love of the people with the generous act of love of Jesus who became a man in order to exalt the humanity. This comparison is meant to exhort the Christians to imitate Jesus in his generous love by becoming generous to one another.
The gospel passage revolves around the two important pillars of ethical teachings of Jesus: Love and Forgiveness in prayer and action. Jesus makes a modification to the Old Law: "You must love your neighbour and hate your enemy." Certainly, there is no mention in the Old Testament that one is to hate one's enemy. But, a narrow interpretation of the Old Law made 'neighbours' only those who were belonging to the Jewish faith and not others. Therefore, others were excluded from this group, thus hating others was considered 'ok'. Hence, Jesus corrects this view and puts all humanity under the same periphery without exclusion of anyone. Jesus rules out hatred in any case in observing the Commandment of Love. He cites the example of God who showes equal love to all, saint or sinner. It's in the same way, Jesus admonishes his disciples to practice the commandment of love even being able to love enemies.
The second admonition is to forgive and pray for them. Jesus counsels his disciples to learn to forgive sincerely and pray for those who harm and hurt them in any way. In fact, it's another way to observe the commandment of love. For, where there is love, there is forgiveness.
Dear friends, many times we do expectation-centered actions. We expect a result for an action, we do. When we act generously we expect appreciation or acknowledgment or recognition etc. We usually don't want to do any charity without it's proper recognition. The first reading reminds us that our generous act must be solely in an imitation of the generous act of love of Jesus. Jesus generously gave up his privileges for us, so we imitate him by sharing with those who are in need; our time, our goods, our help etc.
In fact, any generous act is an offshoot of love. As the gospel, exhorts us to be generous to love everyone irrespective of goodness and flaws. Jesus exhorts us today to be able to love everyone in the same way as God, the Father loves each one of us without making distinction or partiality. It's really difficult but this makes us distinct and honours us to be called the children of God.
As disciples of Jesus, we are also commanded to express our love for one another by forgiving the flaws and weaknesses of others and praying for them so that they may turn to the Lord. Forgiveness is a means whereby love is restored and peace is maintained.
Let's pray that we may be able to imitate Jesus in his generous act of love and in our loving relationship with one another.
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