Mt 25,31-46 – Monday of the First Week of Lent
What great grace today’s liturgy offers us with this page from chapter 25 of the Gospel of Matthew. In these words of Jesus we already know what we will be asked about when, at the end of our life’s journey, we meet him face to face. The criterion is surprisingly simple and yet demanding: «Everything you did to just one of these least brothers of mine, you did to me».
Jesus is very clear: we will be asked if we concretely loved the people who were close to us, if we took seriously especially those who were most in need, those who were fragile, invisible, discarded. Loving, in fact, is not just a mutual exchange. It’s not simply giving and receiving. Sometimes loving means giving without guarantees, without immediate returns.
Nevertheless, according to the teaching of Christ, love is never lost: it is an eternal investment. Nothing that is done out of love is wasted; enters the logic of the Kingdom. A Christian is recognized above all by charity. And charity is extremely concrete. It starts from material needs – hunger, thirst, nakedness, illness, loneliness, prison – but does not end there. It takes care of everything that concerns the person as a whole. For this reason the Church, in its wisdom, has always taught that the works of mercy are not only material, but also spiritual.
There are poverty that cannot be seen immediately, but which hurt the heart: ignorance, doubt, sadness, confusion, sin. These too ask to be helped. The Gospel, then, frees us from an illusion: we will not be judged on accumulated notions, nor on declarations of principle, but on the concrete ability to love. Faith is not measured by the quantity of speeches about God, but by the quality of love towards others.
Today this page asks us a very direct question: how concrete is our charity? How much does our love take shape in gestures, choices, donated time, real listening? This is the true thermometer of our faith. Because where love grows, God also grows in our lives and his real understanding.
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