31st Sunday-B

Good evening/morning every one, I am so happy to welcome you all for today’s Holy Mass. Dear friends, every time we come to Church, we renew our baptismal call saying, we will love God with all our heart, mind, body and soul and every time we come to Church, we renew our Christian call saying to Christ our Lord that we will love others as we love ourselves and every time we come to Church, we become new in Christ our Lord who is our beginning and end.

Once a teacher asked her students if they would give $ 1,000,000 for the poor

They all screamed, “yes, we will”

Would you give $ 1,000 for the poor?

They all shouted, “yes”.

What about $100?

Yes, of course, we will.

Then she looked at them and asked, would you give a dollar for the poor?

Every body said, “yes” except Tommy and the teacher asked, Tommy why won’t you give a dollar for the poor.

Tommy said, “Because I have a dollar”.

In the time of Jesus, religious discussion among rabbis, teachers, scribes and Pharisees were so vigorous because they were about 618 commandments and they argued and discussed on which one was the most important and which were the ones they had to follow every day. The gospel says when Jesus was at the age of twelve; He was in Jerusalem temple talking to famous teachers and rabbis. Jesus was answering their questions and explaining the divine love and compassion of God our Father. Those who heard Him speaking were all amazed at His knowledge and wisdom. It was their custom to have vigorous debate on God and divine commandments.

Once a man went to a famous rabbi and asked, “What is the central rule of the Torah?” The rabbi said, “Whatever you find hateful, do not do to others”. This is the rule of the Torah and all others are just commentary.
Once a man went to a spiritual Master and said, “ You said finding God is easy, I go to Church every day, pray to God five times a day, fast twice a week and keep all the commandments but I still can not find God”. Then the master took him to a lake and there he suddenly pushed his head down into the water for a minute and let him go then asked him, “when you were in the water, what were you thinking, the disciple said, ‘I was not thinking anything and all I thought was just to breath and breath”. The Master looked at his disciple and said, “Son, all your prayers, offerings and fasting will not help you to find God unless you begin to love God with your whole heart, mind, body and soul”.
In today’s gospel, Jesus our Lord gives us out a secret to find happiness and joy namely loving god with our whole heart, mind, body and soul. Those who love God with their whole self, will never experience loneliness, stress, depression or anxiety and all they will find is unending happiness and joy. Yes, Jesus invites us to submit ourselves to God and thus to increase our happiness and joy.

Once a man went to a spiritual Master and said, “Master, I want to love god, please help me”. The master said, “Have you ever loved any human being or a pet animal?” The man said, “I did not have time to love anybody because I want to love God”. The Master said, “Since you have not loved any of divine creature, I can not help you to love God. If you know how to love others, then you know how to love god.

The second commandment is, Jesus said, ‘love your neighbor as yourself”. The gospel says when Jesus will look at faithful people, He would say, “come you blessed by my Father and enter into the kingdom of God, you did so many great things for me. When I was hungry, you fed me, when I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink, when I was naked you clothed me and when I was in prison, you visited me. The righteous looked at Him and asked, “Jesus, when did we see you hungry, thirsty, in prison or naked or lonely and Jesus said to them, “anything you did to one of these little ones, you did it for me”.
Yes, friends, when we love our neighbor, we love god and when we love God, we find happiness and joy on earth and accumulate treasures in heaven. So let us love God with all our heart, mind, body and soul and love our neighbor as ourselves. Amen.