Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Fr. Anson Antony, OFM Cap
In Calcutta, India, there is a children’s home named Shishu Bhavan (Children’s Home), founded by Mother Teresa. The home continues to be operated by her community, the Missionaries of Charity. On the wall of the home hangs a sign which reads:
People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered.
LOVE THEM ANYWAY.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
DO GOOD ANYWAY.
If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.
SUCCEED ANYWAY.
The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow.
DO GOOD ANYWAY.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
BE HONEST AND FRANK ANYWAY.
What you spent years building may be destroyed overnight.
BUILD ANYWAY.
People really need help but may attack you if you help them.
HELP PEOPLE ANYWAY.
Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
GIVE THE WORLD THE BEST YOU’VE GOT ANYWAY.
Mother Teresa counsels her young charges that the challenges offered by this sign can be met only if human beings are motivated by love and respect for one another which looks beyond faults, differences, ulterior motives, success, and failure. Mother Teresa once said of herself, “By blood and origin, I am all Albanian. My citizenship is Indian. I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the whole world. As to my heart, I belong entirely to the heart of Jesus.” It is this relationship of belonging and the loving service that grows out of that belonging which the Scriptural authors called Covenant.
The central theme of today’s readings is the greatest Commandment in the Bible, namely, to respond to God’s Infinite Love for us by loving Him, and to express that love in action by loving Him in our neighbor. The first reading, taken from Exodus, explains the different expressions of the love of one’s neighbor, especially of the underprivileged. Today’s Responsorial Psalm (Ps 18) is our hymn of loving trust in God Who loves us and gives us everything so that we can give it all back to Him in loving His children. So, we sing, “I love You. O Lord, my Strength, O Lord, my Rock, my Fortress, my Deliverer!” In the second reading, St. Paul praises the Thessalonian Christians for the heroic witness they have borne to Christ by their loving reception of Him through Paul’s message which has resulted in their model practicing of mutual love. In the Gospel today, Jesus combines the commandment to love God with the commandment to love one’s neighbor and gives the result as the one Commandment of supreme importance in Christian life.
The English writer G. K. Chesterton once observed that “The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people!” Jesus underlines the principle that we are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves because both of us bear God’s image, and to honor God’s image is to honor Him. The love of God has priority and is our source of love for our neighbor. In our neighbor, we see something of God, His creature, His image and likeness, and His adopted child. If we love God, then, we must also love His image, the work of His hands. God makes daily contact with us through the people around us. Love for our neighbor is a matter, not of feelings, but of deeds by which we share with others the unmerited love that God lavishes on us. This is the love for neighbor that God commands in His law. Since the Jews considered only their fellow Jews as neighbors, Jesus, challenged, and used the parable of the Good Samaritan, as reported in Luke’s Gospel, to show them what God means by “neighbor.”
My dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, God’s will is that we should love everyone, seeing Him in our neighbor. Since every human being is the child of God and the dwelling place of the Spirit of God, we are actually giving expression to our love of God by loving our neighbor as Jesus loves him or her. This means we need to help, support, encourage, forgive, and pray for everyone without any discrimination based on color, race, gender, age, wealth, personal attractiveness, or social status. Forgiveness, too, is vital. We love others by refusing to hold a grudge for a wrong done to us. Even a rebuke can be an act of love if it is done with the right heart. We also express love through encouragement and by helping each other to grow. We express agápe love, seeking the true good of another, by meeting a need that God has given us the power to meet, by comforting each other, by teaching each other, and by sharing the Gospel in deeds and in words. We express our love for our neighbor by waiting upon the aged, nursing the sick, patching up quarrels, and listening to the broken-hearted. In short, loving our neighbor is feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, meeting the basic needs of the poor, helping the unemployed, educating the young, and taking care of the old.
Let us conclude our reflection with the "Prayer of St. Theresa of Avila. "Christ has no body now on earth but yours, No hands but yours, No feet but yours, Yours are the eyes through which is to look out Christ's compassion to the world; Yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good; Yours are the hands with which He is to bless His people." Amen
常年期第三十主日
Fr. Anson Antony, OFM Cap
�在印度加爾各答，有一間名為Shishu Bhavan（兒童之家）的孤兒院，是由德肋撒修女Mother Teresa創辦的。這間孤兒院繼續由她的修會，仁愛傳教修女會管理。牆上掛著一塊牌，上面寫著：
人是不合理的、不合邏輯的、以自我為中心的；無論如何要愛他們。
如果你做好事，人就會指責你別有用心；無論如何都要做好事。
如果你成功了，你就會贏得虛假的朋友和真正的敵人；無論如何都要成功。你所做的善事明天就會被遺忘；無論如何都要做善事。
誠實和坦率會讓你變得脆弱；無論如何都要誠實坦率。
你用多年建造的事物可能會在一夜之間被摧毀；無論如何都要建造。
人確實需要幫助，但如果你幫助他們，他們可能會攻擊你；無論如何都要幫助他人。
把你最好的事物奉獻給世界，你會受到不好、不公平的待遇；無論如何，給世界最好的。
德肋撒修女告誡她的修女，只有當人類以愛和互相尊重為動力，超越過錯、差異、別有用心、成功和失敗時，才能應對這個標記帶來的挑戰。德肋撒修女曾這樣評價自己：「從血統和起源來看，我是阿爾巴尼亞人。我的國籍是印度。我是天主教修女。至於我的使命，我屬於整個世界。至於我的心，我完全屬於主耶穌的心。」這種歸屬感和愛心服務產生於聖經作者稱為盟約的歸屬感。
今天讀經的中心主題是聖經中最大的誡命，即透過愛天主，來回應天主對我們無限的愛，並透過在我們的近人愛天主來以行動表達這種愛。第一篇讀經取自出谷紀，解釋對近人的愛的不同表達方式，尤其是對弱勢群體的愛。 今天的答唱詠（聖詠第18篇）是我們對天主的愛的讚美詩，天主愛我們並賜給我們一切，以便我們可以在愛祂的子女時將一切還給祂。所以，我們唱：「上主，我的力量！我愛慕袮。袮是我的磐石，我的保障，我的救主。我的天主，我的避難所。」
在讀經二，聖保祿讚揚得撒洛尼人教友，藉著聖保祿的信息，以愛心接受基督，為基督作了英勇的見證，從而成為他們實踐互愛的典範。
在今天的福音，主耶穌將愛天主的誡命與愛近人的誡命連結起來，並將其結果作為基督徒生活中最重要的一條誡命。
英國作家切斯特頓 (G.K.Chesterton)曾說：「聖經告訴我們要愛我們的近人，也要愛我們的仇人；可能是因為他們基本上都是同樣的人！」耶穌強調我們要愛人如己的原則，因為我們都有天主的肖象，尊重天主的肖象就是尊重祂。天主的愛是最重要的，也是我們愛近人的根源。在我們的近人身上，我們看到了天主、祂的受造物、祂的肖象和模樣以及祂收養的子女。如果我們愛天主，那麼我們也必須愛祂的肖象，愛祂雙手的作品。天主每天都透過我們周圍的人與我們接觸。對近人的愛不是情感的問題，而是行動的問題，我們藉著行動與他人分享天主給我們的不應得的愛。這就是天主在祂的法律中所命令的愛近人。由於猶太人只將他們的猶太同胞視為近人，因此主耶穌提出挑戰，並使用路加福音中記載的撒瑪利亞人的比喻，向他們展示天主所說的「近人」是什麼意思。
親愛主內的兄弟姊妹們，天主的旨意是我們應該愛每個人，在我們的近人身上看到祂。由於每個人都是天主的子女，也是天主聖神的居所，因此我們實際上是透過愛我們的近人就像主耶穌愛他們一樣來表達我們對天主的愛。這意味著我們需要幫助、支持、鼓勵、原諒和為每個人祈禱，不歧視基於膚色、種族、性別、年齡、財富、個人魅力或社會地位。寬恕也很重要。我們愛別人，就是拒絕因別人對我們所做的錯事而懷恨在心。如果是出於正確的心，即使是責備也可以是一種愛的行為。我們也藉著鼓勵和幫助彼此成長來表達愛。我們表達無私的愛，尋求他人的真正好處，滿足天主給我們能力的需要，互相安慰，互相教導，並在行動和言語中分享福音。我們透過照顧老人、照顧病人、平息爭吵、傾聽傷心者的心聲來表達對近人的愛。簡而言之，愛我們的近人就是為飢餓者提供食物，為無家可歸者提供庇護，滿足窮人的基本需求，幫助失業者，教育年輕人，照顧老年人。
讓我們以「阿維拉聖女，大德蘭的祈禱」來結束我們的反思。「除了你之外，基督在地球上沒有任何身體，除了你之外沒有手，除了你之外沒有腳，你是眼睛，藉著它可以看到基督的憐憫世界; 祢的腳是祂用來行善的； 祂將用你的雙手來祝福祂的子民。」亞孟。
