💖 HOMILY - November 6 💖

First Reading - Romans 11:29-36 

Gospel - Luke 14:12-14

We see in the gospel that Jesus was invited to a dinner where he noticed how the invitees were rushing for the best places. So, he used the occasion as a teachable moment for the guests, then advised the host on the motives behind one’s generosity and the criteria to be followed while inviting guests for banquets. Jesus instructed him to “invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind” in the community and obtain the blessing of God on the day of the Last Judgment.

Dear friends, we need to check the motives behind all our acts of generosity to assess if they are meritorious acts or not. If a generous act is done chiefly out of sense of duty or obligation (as we pay our income tax because it is the state’s law), or if we pay tithes in the parish mostly because it is God’s law, we lose most of the merit. If a rationalized self-interest, like a future reward in Heaven, is the only motive for our good action, we lose the merit of the action once again. We lose the merit of an act of generosity if vainglory or a desire for fame or for acknowledgement from others is the only motive behind our generosity. That is why the Jewish rabbis used to advise their disciples that in the best kind of giving, the giver should not know to whom he is giving, and the receiver should not know from whom he is receiving. Pure altruism with agápe love and overflowing charity are the motives God shows us in His gifts to us, and He expects from us the same in all our acts of generosity, charity and service to Him done to others.