27 February 2023
Matthew 25:31-46
Today’s readings deal with how we should behave towards one another. The first reading examines what we should not do, while the Gospel examines what we should do most.
The Gospel presents the great scene of the Last Judgement when all peoples will be judged by the Lord Jesus. They
will be divided into sheep and goats: those who are with Jesus and those who are not. The criteria by which we will be judged are interesting, they do not directly concern the Ten Commandments (normally the subject of our confessions), nor the actions mentioned in the first reading, which more or less mirror the contents of the Ten Commandments. There is nothing in what we normally call ‘religious obligations’ (e.g. being ‘at mass’ on Sundays and public holidays).
In the powerful and dramatic scene of the ‘Last Judgement’, the ultimate truth of living is revealed, what remains when nothing else remains: love. The Gospel answers the most serious of questions: what have you done to your brother? It does so by listing six works done to the least brothers. Extraordinary: Jesus establishes such a close bond between himself and men, that he comes to identify himself with them: you did it to me! The poor man is like God, God’s body and flesh. The heaven where the Father dwells is his children. God is the one who stretches out his hand, because he lacks something. Revelation that overturns all previous ideas about the divine. One falls in love with this loving and needy God, beggar of bread and home, who does not seek veneration for himself, but for his beloved ones. He wants them all quenched, satiated, clothed, healed, set free. And as long as one is suffering, so will he be.
Because of the changes in our globalised world, some material and spiritual poverties have multiplied: let us therefore give space to the imagination of charity to find new ways of working. In this way, the way of mercy will become more and more concrete. We, therefore, are asked to remain vigilant as sentinels, so that it does not happen that, faced with the poverty produced by the culture of wealth, the gaze of Christians weakens and becomes incapable of aiming at the essential. Aim at the essential. What does this mean? To look at Jesus, to see Jesus in the hungry, the imprisoned, the sick, the naked, the one who has no work and has to carry on a family.
For the good workers…
To see Jesus in these brothers and sisters of ours, in the one who is sick and sad, in the one who makes a mistake and needs advice, in the one who needs to make a way with Him so that they can feel companionship. These are the works that Jesus asks of us! To see Jesus in them, in these people. Why? Because this is how Jesus looks at me, he looks at all of us (Pope Francis).
P JOBY KAVUNGAL RCJ