It is 20th July 2020. We celebrate the memorial of St Apollinaris, bishop, and martyr.
The readings are from Micah 6:1-4, 6-8; and the Gospel from Matthew 12:38-42.
More we remember, more we love. Love compensates everything. Ingratitude is the cancer that kills love.
Remembering renews love; recalling rekindles repentance.
God is looking for authentic and faithful love from us not outward piety and rituals that cannot disconnect us from the bondage of sins.
It is not in reciting but in recalling the goodness of God we become faithful to God.
In the first reading, God expresses the expectation to Israel and to each one of us. God invites the people of Israel to come for a trial and for a loving conversation not to condemn but to improve the broken relationship with Him.
“God has told you, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you: to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” (Mic.6:8). It is the synthesis of the Old and New Testaments.
In everyone’s life, there is a moment or series of events that reminds us of God. Forgetting and failure to acknowledge them hardens our heart in postponing or repressing our repentance.
Our repentance is not only for our spiritual welfare but also for the welfare of common good. God is pleased whenever we reach out to make someone smile.
What is the use of fasting, loving, and being just to oneself when it cannot take care of the hunger of heart, body and spirit of our brothers and sisters in the community we live? The sacrifice that pleases God is having a cordial relationship, a profound loving kindness, and unbiased listening heart towards the other.
Love that includes everyone, humility that leads to prayer, and justice that respects everyone with their right and dignity alone pleases God; God expects nothing more than these.
The responsorial Psalm praises, “To the upright I will show the saving power of God.” (Ps.50:23).
In the Gospel Jesus points out that our complacency constructs the walls of contentment in responding to the needs of the other and looking for signs more than significance.
The signature of God is found profoundly in the display of the passion, the suffering, and the resurrection of Jesus.
May the Lord help us to be grateful to share our love than searching for the avenues of faith. Have a lovely day. God bless you.