Charity to God and man (the 30th Sunday of OT)

“Listen then, Israel; there is no Lord but the Lord our God, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with the love of thy whole heart, and thy whole soul, and thy whole strength.”

Deuteronomy, 6: 4-5 [link]

Above is the call of the Hebrew and the Jew, and the Catholic, from the book of Deuteronomy. We shall hear much of it in our gospel reading this weekend, for Christ used it at this point in the Gospel of S. Matthew to emphasise His identification as an Orthodox Jew, in the face of the attacks of the Pharisees and the Sadducees (the party of the Temple priests in Jerusalem).

Here again is my usual comparison of the Church of the New Testament and the Old Testament People of God. God elected the children of our Father Abraham as His Chosen people, gathered several thousands of them working as slaves in Egypt and drew them under the leadership of the prophet Moses through the depths of the sea, through forty long years in the desert and through the waters of the river Jordan into the Holy Land, which He had promised Abraham would belong to his descendants. We know that the Jewish people claim this land today, which we call Palestine. But we Christians claim no land on this earth in the same way. Because our Holy Land is happiness with God in heaven. The long walk through the desert to the Holy Land for the Hebrews is for a Christian soul her passage through this life on earth. The waters through which the Hebrews passed to acquire their inheritance of land are for the Christian the waters of baptism. And the wretched (although comfortable) land of slavery which for the Hebrews was the Egypt of the Pharaohs is for the Christian the wretched (although usually comfortable) world that we live in. Christ and His Apostles called us out of the world to be a new Elect people, on the way to the eventual possession of heaven. Now, let us look at our readings, and find further comparisons.

“There must be no harrying or oppression of the aliens that dwell among you; time was when you too dwelt as aliens in the land of Egypt. You must not wrong the widow and the orphan; wronged, they will cry out to Me for redress, and their cry will be heard. My anger will blaze out against you, and I will smite you with the sword, making widows of your own wives, orphans of your own children. If thou dost lend money to some poorer neighbour among my people, thou shalt not drive him hard as extortioners do, or burden him with usury. If thou takest thy neighbour’s garment for a pledge, thou shalt give it back to him by set of sun; it is all he has to cover himself with, his body’s protection, all he has to sleep under. He has but to cry for redress, and I, the ever Merciful, will listen to him.”

Exodus, 22: 21-27

Moses tells the people in the first reading that they must not despise or oppress non-Hebrews, rather show them hospitality, for they were themselves outsiders and foreigners in Egypt; and so, let us not despise in any way non-Christians who do not share with us the promises of Christ. Moses tells the Hebrews to not be harsh with widows and orphans – that is, the dispossessed and vulnerable; and so, let us Christians be as charitable as we can with anybody in our experience who is dispossessed and vulnerable. The rest of the reading needs no comparisons. The law of Christian charity (as much as the Law of Moses) obliges us to not charge interest on loans to the poor and destitute, and to return quickly what was borrowed or taken as a pledge, if the loss of it were to seriously inconvenience the other. In fact, Christ requires us to give without hope of return, for giving is far better than receiving. In all things, after all, as Christ makes clear in the gospel story, the law is charity and endless charity. First, we owe a debt of charity, a debt of love, to the Holy One, Who created us and has blessed us and desires with a burning Heart (a furnace of love we call the Sacred Heart) to draw us to Himself. He describes this Himself in the reading, using the words of Deuteronomy at the top of this post.

“And now the Pharisees, hearing how He had put the Sadducees to silence, met together; and one of them, a lawyer, put a question to try Him: ‘Master, which commandment in the Law is the greatest?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and thy whole soul and thy whole mind. This is the greatest of the commandments, and the first. And the second, it’s like, is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments, all the Law and the prophets depend.'”

Gospel of S. Matthew, 22: 34-39

And so, the Law and the Prophets point to Charity, to love. Christ declares that charity to our neighbour, to those who require it – the poor, the destitute, the dispossessed – resembles the charity we owe to God Himself. We cannot declare a love for God and treat our neighbour like so much rubbish. This deep sense of charity is not common to human nature. It is taught us first by the Holy Spirit, and then learnt at the feet of Christ and of His Saints – men and women who are an example to us. Even in the New Testament, as the second reading indicates, the Church was instructed and given the example of Apostles like S. Paul and his cooperators. And love/charity is the only way to be Christian, despite persecutions of every sort.

“Our preaching to you did not depend upon mere argument; power was there, and the influence of the Holy Spirit, and an effect of full conviction; you can testify what we were to you and what we did for you. And on your side, you followed our example, the Lord’s example. There was great persecution, and yet you welcomed our message, rejoicing in the Holy Spirit…”

First letter of S. Paul to the Thessalonians, 1: 5-6