THE WORDBECAME FLESH

Tuesday of the Twelve Week in Ordinary Time, 2022

2Kgs 19:9b-11, 14-21, 31-35a, 36

Ps 48

Matt 7:6,12-14

Memorial of Saint Aloysius Gonzaga

Do to others whatever …

On two occasions in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus reduces everything in the Law and the Prophets to a simple formula.

 In today’s gospel reading Jesus declares that the Law and the Prophets can be summed up as ‘Treat others as you would like them to treat you’. Later in this gospel Jesus declares that the Law and the Prophets can be reduced to two commandments, the commandment to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves. The first summary can be interpreted in the light of the second. How would we like others to treat us? We would like them to love us as they would love themselves; we would like their love for us to flow from their love of God so that their love of us reflects something of God’s love for them and We would all wish to have an experience of God’s love for us in and through those who relate to us. We would like to be treated by others in the same loving, merciful and compassionate, way that God treats us. 

Jesus invites us to imagine what that would be like and then to treat others similarly. Jesus himself was the fullest revelation of God’s love for others. In today’s gospel reading, he is calling on us to be Jesus’ figure for others. There is something of the ‘narrow gate’ and the ‘hard road’ about this calling, in the language of today’s gospel reading. Yet, in the power of the Holy Spirit, we can all be Jesus figures in our world today, to some degree.

Let us pray: Father of love, giver of all good things, in Saint Aloysius you combined remarkable innocence with the spirit of penance. With the help of his prayers, may we who have not followed his innocence follow his example of penance. Amen

+Remain blessed