Dear Brothers and Sisters,
It is wonderful how the last part of the gospel has Jesus saying, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” He does not tell them that you are already in the kingdom, but you are not far from it. He can say this because he knows that the kingdom of God is loving the Lord with all your hearts, and soul and strength, but he has not arrived yet. The scribe does not live by what Jesus just said, but he is not far off. It could be that you are on the way, like Bartimaeus was last week after he recovered his sight.
The Lord says to all of us today that if we embrace this word and realize that the kingdom of God is to love the Lord and love our neighbor then we are on the way. Everything else is baloney. The real kingdom of God is to love the Lord and love our neighbor. The kingdom has already arrived, why, because Christ has opened up this possibility, this wonderful grace of loving. This is why we can say that the kingdom of God has already come.
The psalm today says, ‘I love you, Lord, you are my strength,’ or some variation of that. Can you truly say that loving the Lord is your strength? Or maybe your strength is money, which you think makes you strong. Money is what makes you able to live this week at peace, without worries or depression. Perhaps your strength is more the way you are, or your looks or your hard work. I don’t know what your fortress is. Can we truly say, I love you, Lord, I love you, with all our heart and with all our soul, with all our mind, with all our intelligence, with all our being, with all our strength. Even though we do not love the Lord like this, we are not far from the kingdom. This idea can help us because we love the Lord a little, or not at all, but we know where the kingdom of God is. We know we have been put on a path where we can hear that love.
Love enters through the ear. Faith comes by listening to the preaching; therefore, it is necessary to have an open ear. It is the Lord who opens it so that we can hear. To hear is to love, brothers and sisters. Listen to the Lord, our God, who is God, who is One and not many gods. This is an experience we must have in order to love God above all things. This helps me a lot because in order to love God above your son, for example, it is necessary that you first love your son or yourself or a friend! Then wait for an occasion to put God above your son or yourself, perhaps by speaking to him about faith or a difficult subject or to pray when you don’t feel like it. Ask for this grace to be able to put God first and make the retreat even if you miss a family function.
Remember the gospel where the disciples ask Jesus who sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind. Jesus says, neither one is responsible; it is so that the glory of God can be manifested. Since you have idolized for years many people, you put them above God. You made a god out of your spouse, your children, whomever. You loved them with all your heart and for what? So now that you can love God above these idols. So that the Lord may come into your life and cure you of that blindness and to experience that it is not by your efforts that you finally love the Lord. It is not because I’m wonderful or so terrific, but just the opposite; because I am weak, a poor thing and I need God to help me so that I can experience his kingdom. Then I will be able to love God above all things, above all affections, with all my heart, with all my mind, and above all else, my reason.
Brothers and sisters, our reason tells us to make justice rather than love. Make justice when an injustice occurs, but Christianity is to love him more than our reason. He allowed himself to be crucified. Allow the world to do an injustice to you. If you think you can, wait until tomorrow or even tonight or when you get home. Let’s see if you allow an injustice to be done to you by the one next to you, by your boss tomorrow. Let’s see! Love God with all your strength, over and above money that we earn with our strengths.
Only Jesus Christ has fulfilled this because you and I know that we cannot. Christ fulfilled the Shema (Listen in Hebrew); he fulfilled this gospel today to love the Lord with all your heart, all your mind, all your strength. He fulfilled it on the cross. There he loved God with all his heart as he allowed the spear to pierce it. He loved with all his mind as he let himself be crowned with thorns. He loved with all his strength, that is his hands and his feet that were nailed to the cross. He has done that all for you and for me so that the kingdom of God may come to our life. So that you can listen to this love that he has for you. He is with you and will always be with you. He is dying of love for you. When you are in a place where no one loves you, where you are alone, then you can experience this truly crazy love for you.
When you are good everyone loves you. But when you the wrong things, when you sin, when you do an injustice, who loves you then? If you love a lustful man raise your hand. Or women raise your hand if you like your husbands to be lustful. Who loves a murderer, who can love him? Can you still love him if he kills your child or a family member? Who loves a drunkard who mistreats his wife, can you love him? Absolutely, not!
Who loves a homeless person? It is easy to give him a bottle of water and some bread. How about your bed or your car or your house, can you do that? What do you do when a homeless person comes to your car at a red light, do you roll up the window like I do? Who loves these men? Only God, only God. Don’t you realize that these men are you? You are the lustful one, the murderer, the drunkard, the one who smells bad that no one wants to come close to; it is you! Have you realized yet that you cannot love that one? This is when you can hear the voice of God, when you heard that God loves you, when no one loved you, not your spouse or your brother or your parents.
This is when you can experience this love of God, which is so wonderful. Then you can experience what the psalm says, I love you Lord, I love you, because you have loved me first. You loved me without expecting anything in return. You have given your life for me. You gave your life for me when you should have killed me for the stuff I have done. The abortions, the women I have destroyed, so many horrifying things. I destroyed my marriage, wanted to wipe out all the world, I stole from others and done evil to them. The people I have destroyed by my tongue, and you should have nailed me to the cross and what have you done to me? You loved me, given me absolution from my sins. You put me in a community and given me a path to deepen my faith, to make me a Christian and give me eternal life. All of this so I can be happy, to be in the kingdom of God.
The kingdom of God is not far from you! This is the good news today. The gospel says that one day your will love. Maybe you don’t love him now and our idols come first, and we are blind to many realities, but the Lord doesn’t judge us. He helps you to stay on the road, to stay in your community and you will become a new man. I am going to make it possible for you to love God with all your heart, all your mind and with all your strength. God says that he will do it for you. We don’t know how to do it. We can only sin and that we do very well.
Donkeys bray, a horse neighs very well and a fish doesn’t make any sound, and man sins, which is natural for us. Brothers and sisters, listen and understand what I am saying. Due to original sin, we cannot do things right. We need the help of the Lord. And one day we will be able to say: I love you, Lord! And you will be able to say, I love my brother as he is, without trying to change him, or your spouse. I will love them as they are.