Gospel Commentary for Monday, November 4, 2024

Many of us feel a certain resentment when we have helped someone, performed a service, or solved a problem. The fact is that although the person we have helped usually thanks us with words, we do not feel that we have received an «equivalent» reward.

We may think, and often do think, that the love we give is greater than the love we receive. And when, at certain times, those to whom we dedicate time, attention, help, or material goods «should» reciprocate, do not appear, do not call, do not accompany us… we feel disappointed. This is natural, because it is hard to swallow and we only accept it, with more or less expressed complaints, when the beneficiaries are very close relatives or good friends. For this reason, even if it is a little unconscious, it may seem more reasonable and advantageous to practice generosity by calculating the benefit: what the invitation can bring us to those from whom we will surely receive something similar to what we intend to give.

Today’s Gospel, like each of Jesus’ proposals, offers us a new way of overcoming this kind of disappointment, which is otherwise very human: we must first give to the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind, that is, to all those who, even if they want to, cannot offer us a compensation commensurate with the gift. In the first reading, St. Paul exhorts us: «Do not shut yourselves up in your own interests, but consider the interests of others. Have among yourselves the mind of Christ Jesus.

Christ Jesus gave us everything, fulfilling the will of the Father. He gave us too much, far beyond our capacity to respond: he gave himself to the point of death and death on the cross. Let us try to have the same feelings, asking the Holy Spirit to recreate in us a heart similar to that of Christ, to give ourselves without measure, without calculation and without expecting any response other than that which God has already anticipated by giving us his Son.