Humans as Vehicles of Hope

In today’s Gospel, Mt. 22: 34-40, Jesus is being needled by the Pharisees who ask Him which commandment in the law is the greatest commandment. He responds: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind…and your neighbor as yourself.” If you do not love yourself, this commandment is unfulfillable. You cannot love your neighbor if you despise yourself. You will end up despising others as well.  Neither will you follow the Lord’s commands, if you do not love God above all.  The other “loves” in your life will give you a run for your money and you are likely to follow other “loves,” not God who is love itself.

In the first reading of today’s liturgy, Ezekiel 37: 1-14,  we have the example of a man who loved God above all else. Out of that love he is ready to do whatever God asks of him. Ezekiel is staring at a pit of dried up bones of the entire army of the Israelites, persons killed, no doubt, in wars against other nations. Imagine yourself being Ezekiel and coming across this pit of human remains and God asking you to prophesy over these dead bones, saying: “Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord….I will bring spirit into you, that you may come to life. I will put sinews upon you, make flesh grow over you, cover you with skin, and put spirit in you so that you may come to life and know that I am the Lord.”  Without faith and trust in the Lord, with no love of God in your heart, there is no way that you would carry out God’s wishes.   Nor  would you believe that God, in truth, loves us with all His heart, and with all His soul, and with all His mind and wants to restore “dead bones to life.”  What are you doing to develop a loving relationship with God? What are you doing to strengthen your  faith and trust in God?  Without that relationship, it will be impossible to stare death, destruction, decay, lifelessness  in the face  and believe resurrection, new life, is possible.  So I encourage you to begin to seek to know the Lord by spending time in solitude with God, by taking time to read your favorite Scripture passages, by letting yourself be loved by another person and, in turn, loving the other for his/her own sake. You will find God and God will find you in that love.