October 29th, 2023 (30 Sunday Ordinary A) 

Dear brothers and sisters, the Gospel today speaks to us about the first and great commandment, which is: “You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with your whole mind and with your whole strength” and the second says Jesus Christ is like the first: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” From these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. The difficulty we face today is that God is being eliminated. From government, society, schools, work, home, family, marriage, God many times is not considered. Society sadly and many times also ourselves we do not look at God or love him in this way. The problem is that if we are not able to love God above everything else we also cannot love our neighbor. It is tragic that society today wants to remove God from every aspect of man and is promoting many new ideologies like the “woke” ideology where God has been erased and man is now at the center of everything. With these kinds of ideas one can do whatever he likes or feels. Everything is “good” for him, and everyone has to respect it. This leads to all kinds of problems, as the confusion that arises with gender ideologies, abortion, euthanasia, legalization of drugs… Man in this way and ideologies wants to take the place of God and decide what is good and what is bad. The only way to really love your neighbor without these false truths that society constantly proposes is to put God at the center. As John Paul II once said Jesus Christ reveals man to man. Christ comes to fulfill this commandment for us from the cross he loves God with his whole heart, mind and strength at the same time he comes to love us in the same way with his whole heart, mind and strength. Christ wants to give us his spirit so that we can also love like this.

Peace, Fr. Nicholas