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November 3, 2024Homily of Bp Paolo Martinelli for the thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time in Ras Al Khaimah where he inaugurated the new outdoor gathering area of St Anthony's parish on the 2nd of November
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The word of God that we have heard brings us to the heart of the Christian vocation. In today's Gospel we find the summary of the meaning of our life and of everything that we as children of God can do together.
In the Gospel we find a dialogue between Jesus and a Pharisee about the most important commandment. Perhaps this question may seem simple to us and the answer obvious. But it was not so during the time of Jesus. The people of Israel had developed throughout their history and their journey, as the people of the covenant, a very broad series of decrees and precepts - 613 - to apply the law of God in all the concrete circumstances of life. A good faithful Israelite in the time of Jesus had before him a very large number of rules to follow. This made the relationship with God very formal and external, and a question often arose among them: but of all these commandments, which is the most important one?
What is the core of God’s law? The same is the concern of Pharisee’s question: what the most important commandment is. Jesus answers in a very interesting way because he does not cite just one commandment but two and puts them in profound relation.
First of all, Jesus cites a very ancient expression of the law of Israel that we heard in the first reading from the book of Deuteronomy. It was a phrase that was repeated very frequently in homes and families known as Shema Israel, which means listen, Israel. This phrase expresses the most important commandment: To love God with your whole self, that is with all your soul, with all your heart, with all your mind and with all your strength. These expressions say that God is unique, and the love of God means everything of our life. The love of God cannot simply stand alongside other loves: God is everything, and everything of us must be given to God. The love of God takes everything of us.
Jesus does not limit himself to recalling this commandment; he immediately adds another. The second, is similar to the first. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus says that this second commandment is similar to the first. This means that the two commandments cannot be opposed and cannot be replaced. The first commandment implies the second, requires the second. In fact, St. John will later say in his letters: you cannot love God whom you do not see if you do not love the brother whom you see (1John 4:20).
If the love of God manifests itself first of all as exclusive, because it takes all of us (soul, body, heart and mind and all our strength...) at the same time this love is inclusive. The love of God leads us to love our neighbor, for every man and every woman, for every brother and sister.
For this reason, Jesus, the high priest of the new covenant, as the letter to the Hebrews says, will ask his disciples to love one another as he has loved us. He, the Son of God, revealed to us the love of God that we are called to live. Therefore, to be a Christian and follow Jesus, one can never be alone and remain isolated in oneself, but it always implies belonging to the Church, to the Christian community and living fraternal relationships with everyone, because God is present in everyone.
Dearest faithful, it is beautiful to be a Christian, to be the holy people of God, to form a parish. It is beautiful to be loved and to love God and our neighbor. God and our neighbor are two faces of the same love that we are called to practice every day with the grace of God.
I have just returned from Rome after participating in the Synod of Bishops on how we can be a synodal Church in mission. I spent four weeks together with 350 other bishops and Pope Francis. After this very strong experience, I would like to convey to you with conviction the invitation of Pope Francis to always walk together. Synod in fact means walking together, never alone or in isolation. Being a Church means being a people, with different charisms, ministries and vocations but all called to walk together collaborating and sharing their gifts. As the people of God, we are called to be active and never passive, protagonists and united, never divided.
I am happy to be among you this evening in this parish dedicated to Saint Anthony, where a new structure is inaugurated, a canopy that will give us even better space to be together and recognize ourselves as the people of God called to walk together. I thank the parish priest, Father Joy and the other priests, I thank all the lay people who collaborated in building this new structure that will favor the joyful gathering of the faithful to pray, to share gifts and to walk together.
May the inauguration of this new structure be for all of you a precious opportunity to keep at the center of your heart the two fundamental commandments: to love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself.
If we love one another, as Jesus loved us, we will be witnesses of the joy of the Gospel to everyone. May Mary, Most Holy Mother of God and Mother of the Church, and Saint Anthony intercede for you so that you may always live in the love and joy of being children of God.
See photos of the ceremony
