Homily: "Serve others, that is to love God"

"Lord, do not leave me, do not leave me, my God!" (Ps 37.32) This is how we started Holy Mass with the antiphon of the entrance so consoling. But we know that it is one, I am the human person who decides to approach God or to move away from him. The only thing that brings us closer to God is love, which finds its visibility and certification in the love of neighbor. This leads us to recognize Jesus as our Redeemer and Savior, as well as his invitation to follow him and imitate him.

Today's liturgy focuses on what constitutes the foundation of the "people of God". In the heart of Israel were the temple and the sacrifices, which should always be a sign of obedience to the commandments whose summit is: "Love God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your heart. your strength "(Ex 20). In Christ, we are grafted to the only people of God.

Only love forges unity.

"Hear Israel, for the Lord our God is One" (Dt 6,4). This unique God is essential in Israel, surrounded by pagan and polytheistic peoples. That's why his testimony is essential: God is One! And you must testify. In fact, the Israelites in their beautiful song praise the "Shema" for witnessing the fact that God alone is Creator, Elector and Liberator, therefore the Redeemer of his people. It is said in Israel that love for God is added to this: "with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength" must be "of all your goods". It will be praised as God One, integrally by the human person.

Love and sacrifice

The Scribes agreed with Jesus that love for God was manifested and manifested in a commitment to service others. On the other hand, for the Sadducees, love for God manifests itself in worship and sacrifices.

The Pharisees learned in exile from Babylon, deprived of their temple and worship, that the works of charity were effective means of atonement as well as sacrifices, which coincided with the tradition of the prophets and Jesus. (Am 5,21, Os 6,6, Mt 5,23 and 9,13). The sacrifices in the temple are the expression of a reality: the commitment to serve the neighbor – lived before.

The New Testament never presents Jesus offering a sacrifice in the temple. And we know that the multiplicity of sacrifices was only the foreshadowing of the unique, perfect sacrifice, which has a value for ever and is realized in the person of Jesus Christ: victim, offering and perfect sacrifice. (see 2nd reading, Heb 7.23).

Love as a command

The phrase "Hear Israel" is equivalent to Obey. And when God wants to be loved: "… with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your might" (Mk 12,30). It means a total love (Deum 6.6). God always gives what he asks us. When we are baptized, we are grafted into his death and resurrection, but also into his love. Let us not be carried away by the "dependencies" which are the new idolatries (1 Cor 10.2-4). To love as God expects us, we must radically trust the grace of God: "I can do all things in Him who strengthens me" (1Cor 15,19 and following).