Posted: 01 Mar 2009 11:00 PM PST(Catholic Exchanged)
Lv 19:1-2, 11-18 / Mt 25:31-46
Scanning a history book, reading a newspaper, or watching the news on television make very concrete the vast contradictions to be found in this human race of ours. That monsters like Adolf Hitler and Slobodan Milosevic and saints like Mother Theresa and good Pope John could inhabit the same planet and the same century is astonishing. Yet it is Christian belief that God made every one of us in his own image and likeness, and that the Holy Spirit dwells in every heart — without exception.
There is the challenge that each of us must face all our lives long: To see in every one of our brothers and sisters the likeness of God, no matter how damaged and distorted they may have become. Jesus speaks the challenge boldly in today’s gospel: “Whatever you did for the least of my brethren, you did it for me… And whatever you neglected to do for the least of my brethren, you neglected to do it for me.”
God loves each one of us, not because we’ve earned it, but because we are his. Our vocation, in turn, is to learn how to love all our brothers and sisters, not because they earned it, but because they are the Lord’s. That kind of open-ended loving changes hearts and, as scripture says, covers a multitude of sins. So let us love, not just in word but in deed.
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1 comment:
Mother Theresa and Pope John Paul II have not been canonized as saints. It is my opinion, these two are not eligible to be declared as saints. Please correct your facts. Thank you.
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