Today’s Gospel reminds us that we, human beings, are all too easily motivated by enmity towards God, instead of fulfilling God’s purpose for us, that we should love him. Therefore today, let us look at ways for us to love God.

We want to understand the persons we love, and we enjoy being with them. This also applies to God, who is best known through his incarnation, when Christ’s human nature makes his divinity more accessible.

The four Gospels describe Jesus as compassionate, humble and indifferent to social status, unafraid of declaring his divine authority, and always consistent, living what he taught.

His compassion led him to prefer the company of the severely ill, the very poor and the social outcast to that of people holding an impressive position in society, those seen as successful leaders in both the society. Yet Jesus chose his inner circle of disciples, both men and women, not from among the deeply flawed, but those who had resilience.

He himself grew up in a family owning a building business in Nazareth – that is what the profession called ‘tekton’ in the Greek text of the Gospels means. Recent New Testament scholars point to historical evidence that Nazareth builders were affluent because throughout Jesus’ earthly life, large numbers of administrative buildings were put up in and around Nazareth. Jesus’ earthly life and social circumstances have become better known by historians in recent times.

Jesus reveals the divine nature, the reality sustaining everything. He has no need of self-assertion or defensiveness. God is humble because he is real. God is consistent and never fails to be our role model. If we keep our eyes on the Saviour and his Mother (whose personality is clearly described in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke: she is fearless, extremely brave and always single-minded in her devotion to God’s will), we have all the information we need for our own Christian life.

After reviewing our knowledge of Christ our God, we turn to prayer as the first expression of our love for God. The essence of prayer is outer and inner silence. It is possible to pray without words, but never without silence and recollection. Our prayer is most importantly what we do together in church. The Liturgy thins down considerably the veil between heaven and earth, a real taste of heaven.

Together with prayer, our love for God is expressed through our love for all people and all of creation. Nobody and nothing may be excluded from the love received from God then shared with his entire creation. It is important, when we prepare our confession, to ask ourselves whether we tend to exclude some persons or other parts of God’s creation from the scope of our love. God provides us with everything we need to embrace the human race and all of creation within our active love.

Amen.

Given by Father Yves