In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.
Our Lady, Seat of Wisdom, St. Joseph, our patron saints and guardian angels, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
This day in Lent focuses especially on the Ten Commandments and really what is the essence of them.
Remember when the young man asked, or the scribe asked, what is the greatest of the commandments?
He summed them all up in that two-fold, you know, love God with your whole heart, with your whole soul, and your whole strength, and your neighbor as yourself, which he said the second one is like unto the first.
But after God gave Moses the Ten Commandments in the book of Exodus, later on in the book of Leviticus, God also spoke to Moses because the book of Leviticus was like a priestly manual,
telling the priests all the things that they were to do with regard to the Ten Commandments.
In regards to the proper worship that God wanted them to conduct in the temple or when they were to offer sacrifice.
Gave them certain prescriptions on how to deal with those who were sinners and leprosy.
You know, how to, since the priest was kind of also the civil authority, you know, how to handle leprosy, which was such a devastating disease in those days.
How he was to first tell.
How if a person truly had leprosy and then to, you know, banish them from the community so that they wouldn't spread it to others.
But then he also gave them a fleshed out, you might say, the moral code, but the Ten Commandments and what they really, you know, fleshed them out for them.
You know, you shall not lie or speak falsely to one another.
You shall not swear falsely by my name and goes on.
And gives them even more detail as to how far the Ten Commandments go.
And you can see already in the Old Testament that our Lord was just bringing out what was already there.
Because this passage from Leviticus ends with,
You shall not bear hatred for your brother in your heart.
Though you may have to reprove him, do not incur sin because of him.
Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against your fellow countrymen.
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
So our Lord was just pointing it out.
You know, really, he's just, what is the essence of those commandments?
And he was just bringing out what was already there, you might say, kind of hidden.
But was there for those who would understand that the essence of why they were to do all these things was because they should love God.
And they should love their neighbor.
The response.
Oil Psalm today's mass.
The psalmist just keeps repeating different names, you might say, of ways of calling the Ten Commandments.
He is almost, it's like a litany.
He calls it the law of the Lord is perfect.
So the law of the Lord is one way of calling the Ten Commandments.
The decree of the Lord is trustworthy.
The decree of the Lord.
The precepts of the Lord are right.
The command of the Lord is clear.
And he keeps.
Giving them, you know, if the law of the Lord refreshes the soul, the decree of the Lord gives wisdom to the simple.
If we follow the Ten Commandments, you don't have to be a genius.
A simple person can be quite wise if they follow the Ten Commandments.
Wouldn't that be a big revelation in Washington, D.C.?
The fear of the Lord is another way of referring to the commandments is pure.
The ordinance of the Lord.
The commandments of the Lord are true and all of them just.
So that, you know, the commandments of the Lord are just and they're not being unjust to someone if you enforce them.
And so the psalmist is just giving us different ways and sometimes the psalmist would do that many times.
He would repeat the same truth but in a different way.
Use different words but to get across the same idea.
And in the gospel today.
That famous passage of Matthew.
Verses.
Chapter 25 verses 31 to 46.
You know, the famous.
It's read many times at funerals because it talks about the judgment, which so many people sometimes today forget that, you know, there is a judgment that comes at the end of our life.
And what are we going to be judged on?
Well, our Lord points out here, you know, all these corporal works of mercy.
You know, giving drink to the thirsty.
Clothing.
The naked.
Visiting the sick.
The losing in prison.
It's not because that's all there is or that they're more important.
But what our Lord is pointing out is if you're not even doing the corporal works of mercy, you definitely aren't even doing the spiritual ones.
Because the corporal ones are more readily, you might say, visible or obvious to us.
But he's just saying if you haven't even done the corporal ones, it's surely you didn't even do the spiritual ones.
But these.
What our Lord is pointing out to us is that, you know, all these things that were being done, if they were done truly with the right spirit, because as he points out, love your neighbor as yourself.
And he who does this to his neighbor is also doing it to Christ.
And this is why we are so should be as Christians so motivated and inspired to be charitable.
Because of this.
Identity.
Christ identifies himself with us, with our neighbor.
And that whatever we do because of this.
Identity that we have and that Christ has made with us that to do unto our neighbor is to do unto him.
You know, it's not just now love your neighbor as yourself, but love one another as I have loved you.
So as we go along.
In Lent, you know, we do all these corporal works of mercy and hopefully we're doing them.
And we do corporal mortification that we are doing this penance, you know, denying ourselves.
But it's only half of it.
If all we're doing is these things that are directed towards ourself and we're not also looking out to our neighbor as the church prescribes for us during Lent is not just penances that we do for our neighbor.
Our own self sanctification, but we're not really sanctifying ourself fully or to the to the perfection unless we are also looking out for our neighbor and those in need and taking care of not just their corporal needs, but also their spiritual ones.
And so, you know, we can also be praying for the dead.
We can be instructing the ignorant.
We can be giving counsel to those who are needing counsel, giving, admonishing the sinner.
Those are all spiritual works of mercy as well.
And we should also be looking to those as well as we continue on in this season of Lent.
But let us, you know, reflect on that during this season.
You know, what is it that we should be doing?
What are we doing for our neighbor that we're not doing?
You know, is there somebody in need in my midst who needs some assistance and that I see them as not just being another fellow human being?
You know, that's philanthropy.
And today in many things, there's just, you know, this this works of philanthropy without any real charity.
They don't look upon it as being something they're doing for God, obviously.
But the world.
It considers to be philanthropist today, you know, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, because they gave billions of dollars to Planned Parenthood.
That's not philanthropy.
That's misanthropy.
That's the hatred of mankind, because to kill the children in the womb is not philanthropy.
To give money for that is not a charity.
If they really had charity in mind, love of God, they would know that that is not at all a good thing to do.
And so we have lots of people who think they're doing good things and they're not because they have it has no soul to it.
It's just an action done mainly for the for the admiration of their fellow men or someone to praise them.
Oh, aren't they so nice?
But really, charity, if done properly, is always keeping in mind that it's God.
Love of God.
And love of God.
And love of my neighbor who has identified and is identified with God and his my brother in Christ.
That's what we need to keep in mind, especially when we go out to do charitable deeds, that we should I should see that we're doing this for God and out of love for God, for our neighbor.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
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