Gospel: Luke 10: 13-16
God extends love to us humans in the person of Jesus who performed signs of healing, deliverance, and feeding. We have all received these bounteous gifts, as did the people of Jesus' day. But a gift requires a response from the one who received the gift. Jesus suggests that our response to the gift of love must be repentance from sins, living a different way of life than we had formerly. We are to turn away from our self-interested way of life toward a life of love and mercy extended to others.
If all we do is receive God's gift without a response of love on our part, we continue in the same selfish, self-interested life. No transformation has taken place in our encounter with the Lord. We receive without giving anything for others. The world goes on as before, consumed with the acquisition of possessions and riches, power and influence, status and image.
In bestowing the gifts of healing, liberation, and nourishing upon us. Jesus in turn enjoins us to extend these same things to others through a life of mercy and love That is the way we atone and repent of sin. That is the way in which we are transformed, and that is the only way in which the world will be transformed from its preoccupation with self-interest to that of the common good and concern for others.
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