Friday – 3rd Week of Lent – A

We begin with the first reading from the Book of the Prophet Hosea, where God calls Israel to repentance and promises healing. He says: “Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God” (Hosea 14:2). Our Lord so desires that we return to him with contrite hearts. And as the reading continues further down, the Lord says: “I will heal their defection… I will love them freely; for my wrath is turned away from them” (Hosea 14:5).

My brothers and sisters, the message for today becomes conversion that leads to listening, and listening that leads to loving.

Pastorally, these readings speak directly to a perennial temptation: reducing faith to external practice. Do you remember when Jesus condemned the fig tree on Monday of Holy Week? Do you know why he did that? Because it was advertising fruit—that it had fruit beneath its leaves. Any fig tree that was in leaf normally would have fruit behind those leaves. But when Jesus searched behind the leaves, he found no fruit. It was false advertising.

And this is what happens when faith becomes only external practice. One can attend Mass, pray prayers, follow religious customs, and yet still have a heart that is divided and attached to false idols, to false saviours.

So God asks something deeper from each of us. Israel trusted Assyria and military power. Today people trust money, politics, status—even technology can become a false saviour in today's world of artificial intelligence. AI can be useful for many things, but it can also become a temptation to replace God in people's hearts.

Hosea reminds us that only God saves, and the devil will do everything in his power to replace God with one of these false saviours in your heart.

Now faith begins by listening. The Christian life is not first about activity or action, but about hearing God's voice.

We hear God's voice through Scripture, through reading his word and allowing it to penetrate our hearts. We hear his voice through prayer, which is perhaps the most important element in the life of a Christian. We hear his voice through the Church, through the sacraments, and through our brothers and sisters who walk this same journey of faith with us.

God can also speak through our conscience, through events in our lives—even through nature, through beauty, through moments of joy or suffering. There are many ways in which we can keep our ears open to hearing God's voice.

Then we hear in the Gospel about the two greatest commandments. Jesus says: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind… You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Matthew 22:37–39).

Love is the heart of the law. Jesus reduces the entire law to these two loves: love of God and love of neighbour. Everything else in the law is meant to express these two loves.

Without love, my brothers and sisters, religion itself becomes empty ritual.

Finally, there is a beautiful movement across today's readings. Through the prophet Hosea, God promises: “I will love them freely” (Hosea 14:5).

What does that mean? It means that although people may be distant from God, distracted, alienated, or attached to false saviours, God reaches out first. God's love takes the initiative.

Then Jesus asks us to respond—to love God back with our whole heart because he loves us with everything that is in him.

Even in Eucharistic miracles, when the host has been scientifically examined, it has often been identified as human heart tissue. What does it mean when we say that Jesus gives us his heart? It means that he gives us everything.

So let us love him back with everything that is in us.

The Christian life is not primarily our love reaching up to God, but God's love healing us first. And once healed, we finally become capable of loving him—and loving him in our neighbour.

And that is not always easy.

So I call upon you right at this very moment: may God give you his very special blessing through the intercession of our Blessed Mother.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord by loving your neighbour as yourself. Amen.