Stay on the Right Line

After fasting as a key pillar of Lent, today’s liturgy focuses on an essential attitude: charity. The main message is clear from the beginning: what truly counts is our tangible actions of love toward others.

We live in a world where people are classified into myriad categories: professions, academic qualifications, social status, accumulated successes, the poor, VIPs, world powers, third-world countries, developing countries, etc. There are thousands of recognised professions worldwide, dozens of major academic degrees, and hundreds of awards and recognitions. There are questions about who has more followers online, who has more certificates, and who has more successes. People are quantified and evaluated in thousands of different ways.

Overturn Classifications

Today’s Gospel overturns all human classifications by reducing them to one criterion: love. At the final judgment, Jesus divides people into just two lines—those who have loved and those who have not. The decisive measure is this: have you shown tangible love to others? Feeding the hungry, welcoming strangers, and helping the lonely—this is what matters most. The main message is clear: our actions of love are what truly count.

The great surprise is this: the Master of the universe does not identify with the great and the mighty of the earth, but with the least. The burning question that the Gospel poses to you and to me today is: Which line are you in? Are you in the line of those who show love or in the line of those who do not love concretely? If you realise you are in the wrong line, the season of Lent is a favourable moment to try to switch lines immediately, before it’s too late. Of course, the right line to join is the line of those who show genuine love to others.

[Readings: Leviticus 19:1-2, 11-18; Matthew 25:31-46]