Blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you

4 NOVEMBER (Lk 14,12-14)

Such a high teaching of freedom in love does not exist throughout the Old Testament. Loving is giving to others, it is self-giving, without expecting anything from the other, because who reward is only the Lord. He is the guarantor of mercy and compassion. However, in Ancient Scripture we find, already signs of this love to all, without excluding any. These signs are to be seen in the provisions for the celebration not only of the great feasts, but also of the everyday life celebration.

“However, in any of your communities you may slaughter and eat to your heart’s desire as much meat as the Lord, your God, has blessed you with; and the unclean as well as the clean may eat it, as they do the gazelle or the deer. Only, you shall not partake of the blood, but must pour it out on the ground like water. Moreover, you shall not, in your own communities, partake of your tithe of grain or wine or oil, of the first-born of your herd or flock, of any offering you have vowed, of your freewill offerings, or of your personal contributions. These you must eat before the Lord, your God, in the place he chooses, along with your son and daughter, your male and female slave, and the Levite who belongs to your community; and there, before the Lord, you shall make merry over all your undertakings. Take care, also, that you do not neglect the Levite as long as you live in the land (Dt 12,15-19).

“You shall count off seven weeks, computing them from the day when the sickle is first put to the standing grain. You shall then keep the feast of Weeks in honor of the Lord, your God, and the measure of your own freewill offering shall be in proportion to the blessing the Lord, your God, has bestowed on you. You shall make merry in his presence together with your son and daughter, your male and female slave, and the Levite who belongs to your community, as well as the alien, the orphan and the widow among you. Remember that you too were once slaves in Egypt, and carry out these statutes carefully. “You shall celebrate the feast of Booths for seven days, when you have gathered in the produce from your threshing floor and wine press. You shall make merry at your feast, together with your son and daughter, your male and female slave, and also the Levite, the alien, the orphan and the widow who belong to your community. For seven days you shall celebrate this pilgrim feast in honor of the Lord, your God, in the place which he chooses; since the Lord, your God, has blessed you in all your crops and in all your undertakings, you shall do nought but make merry. (Dt 16,9-15).

“When you have come into the land which the Lord, your God, is giving you as a heritage, and have occupied it and settled in it, you shall take some first fruits of the various products of the soil which you harvest from the land which the Lord, your God, gives you, and putting them in a basket, you shall go to the place which the Lord, your God, chooses for the dwelling place of his name. There you shall go to the priest in office at that time and say to him, ‘Today I acknowledge to the Lord, my God, that I have indeed come into the land which he swore to our fathers he would give us.’ The priest shall then receive the basket from you and shall set it in front of the altar of the Lord, your God. Then you shall declare before the Lord, your God, ‘My father was a wandering Aramean who went down to Egypt with a small household and lived there as an alien. But there he became a nation great, strong and numerous. When the Egyptians maltreated and oppressed us, imposing hard labor upon us, we cried to the Lord, the God of our fathers, and he heard our cry and saw our affliction, our toil and our oppression. He brought us out of Egypt with his strong hand and outstretched arm, with terrifying power, with signs and wonders; and bringing us into this country, he gave us this land flowing with milk and honey. Therefore, I have now brought you the first fruits of the products of the soil which you, O Lord, have given me.’ And having set them before the Lord, your God, you shall bow down in his presence. Then you and your family, together with the Levite and the aliens who live among you, shall make merry over all these good things which the Lord, your God, has given you (Dt 26,1-11).

Loving is making of the personal life a gift to the brothers in need, the poor and the miserable, not for them to remain in their own misery, but so that they are elevated in their dignity.

Then he said to the host who invited him, “When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors, in case they may invite you back and you have repayment. Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints teach us how to love.Blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you.