13th Sunday- Ordinary time- A

13th Sunday in Ordinary time-A 

In today's Gospel, Christ our Lord calls us in a special way to 'Love Him' more than anyone else in the world. 

Loving Christ more than anyone else means committing ourselves completely to Him and Him alone.  

As many scribes and scholars asked Christ about loving God, 

Christ our Lord said, "Love God with all your heart, mind, body and soul...". It's because Christ loved us first and we should love Him back. It's because He proved His unconditional love by dying on the cross for us and we should love Him back and it's because He promises eternal life for us who follow Him and we should love Him back. Yes, we should love Him with all our heart, mind, body and soul.  

As we love Him more than anyone else, all others will come to know the loving kindness of God our Father. This is the only way to let the world know that our God is a living God and He made us to know and love Him with all our heart, mind and body.  

1. Once the famous scientist, writer and painter Leonardo Da Vinci who prepared to paint the famous Last Supper, was searching for a man who could pose Jesus Christ in that painting. He looked for a man whose face would have divine peace and calmness, whose face would reflect love and kindness, forgiveness and mercy and Da Vinci finally found a man who posed as model for Christ the Lord. And thus Da Vinci finished painting Christ and then one by one he painted all other apostles except Judas Iscariot who betrayed our Lord. By then he spent more than two year and then he began to search for a man whose face would reflect ugliness and revenge; deception and other horrible characters and after a long search, Da Vinci finally found a man who exactly fit for his ideas and he asked him to pose for Judas and thus he finished the beautiful painting of last supper. The man who posed for Judas as he was leaving the studio looked at Da Vinci and said, "Do you remember me?" Da Vinci said, "No...I don't and who are you?' The man said, "I am the same man who posed for Jesus two years ago and now you asked me to pose for Judas too" 

You know what the man said. He said, "Except the Lord our God, I loved everybody else". 

As we love the Lord our God more than anyone else, we find purpose in our lives and become like magnet and attract others towards God and ourselves.  

2. Loving Jesus more than anyone else means forgiving others and taking up our cross daily and follow Him. 

The biggest challenge today is practicing forgiveness.  

Once a man prayed to God saying, "God, give me your blessing so that I can change the world...." Years went by and nothing happened and then in his forties, he prayed saying, "God, please give me your blessing and I could change my country and years went by and nothing happened" and in his fifties, he prayed to God saying, "God, give me your grace and I could change my community" and years went by nothing happened and in his sixties, he prayed to God saying, "God, give me your blessing and at least, I could change my family and children". Years went by and everybody remained the same and at last in his eighties, he prayed to God saying, "God, give me your blessing and I could change myself" Then he felt something new and wonderful. Forgiveness is accepting others as they are and changing oneself. When we change ourselves, people will change, the world will change and everything else will begin to make sense.  

Loving Jesus more than anyone else means preaching the Good News of salvation to all and living our lives for the glory of God. 

The thirty years of Christ our Lord are so important and when we boil them down, the three years of Christ become so important. When we move further, the three days of Christ become so important and as we move further, the three hours of Christ is the most important in human history. Yes, the last three hours changed everything.  

We are called to preach the life that Christ brought through the Cross . We are saved in Christ and as we live like people of hope, joy and happiness, the whole world will come to know that Christ is alive. Let us keep Christ at the center of our life and help others to love Him more than anything and anyone else in the world. Amen.