HE DIED TO MAKE US RIGHTEOUS

XI SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - Romans 5:6-11

After Pentecost, the liturgy of the Church presents us with three celebrations that lead us to focus on love. In the Holy Trinity, we celebrate God as relationship and communion or, as we are told in the first letter of John, as love, “because God is love” (1 Jn 4:8). In the solemnity of Corpus Christi, we celebrate the great love of God in Jesus Christ who feeds us with his body and blood, so that we may live by him. Finally, in the solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we celebrate Jesus’ love, the love that led him to shed his blood for our redemption, so that we may be reconciled with God and accepted as his beloved children.

In this Sunday, the second reading, taken from the letter to the Romans, Paul invites us to meditate on God’s love revealed in Jesus Christ. The proof of God’s love is that “Christ died for us while we were still sinners.” “We were still enemies”, “when we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son”. Jesus “died to make us righteous”. By his death, he reconciled us to God. That’s why “we may count on being saved by the life of his Son”. By this assurance, “we are filled with joyful trust in God”.

And Christ entrusted to his disciples the ministry of reconciliation (2 Co 5:18). He chose the Apostles and then prepared and trained them to carry on with this ministry of reconciliation. Today’s gospel speaks of the twelve chosen and then sent by Christ with the mission to “proclaim that the kingdom of heaven is close at hand.” (Mt 10:7). Like the apostles, we are called to be witnesses of God’s love in Jesus Christ, proclaiming the Kingdom of God.