October 29^th 2017. Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time

GOSPEL: Matthew 22, 34-40

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading ...

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GOSPEL: Matthew 22, 34-40

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees,
they gathered together, and one of them,
a scholar of the law tested him by asking,
"Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?"
He said to him,
"You shall love the Lord, your God,
with all your heart,
with all your soul,
and with all your mind.
This is the greatest and the first commandment.
The second is like it:
You shall love your neighbour as yourself.
The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments."

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . In the Gospel, Jesus proclaims the two most important commandments. In reality they are a single commandment because love of God is inseparable from love of neighbour. But how important are these commandments, really? Maybe it is possible to live a good life without loving God and neighbour? Maybe love of God and neighbour is just an optional extra that helps to enhance our lives? No! Without love of God and neighbour we cannot live authentically. And it not just any kind of “love”. We are to love with our entire hearts, souls and minds. These three faculties represent the completeness of the human person in Biblical anthropology. Our love must be deep and complete, otherwise it is not authentic. If I say that I will love my spouse up to a certain point, then my love is not genuine. It is merely a matter of convenience that ultimately will take second place to my real self-absorbed interests when the going gets tough. Jesus calls us to complete, authentic love. He is the origin and source of love. His grace makes love of God and love of neighbour possible.

The Old Testament reading seems life-threatening, but only because the Lord wishes to show that his law is essential for life in the authentic sense.

The first reading from the Book of Exodus has instructions for the care and good treatment that should be shown towards the stranger, the widow and orphan, and those who are impoverished. In the Gospel we have the proclamation of the greatest commandment of all: “Love the Lord with all your heart, soul and mind”. The second commandment, Jesus says, is similar: “Love your neighbour as yourself”. There are many resonances between the Old Testament reading and the Gospel, but there is one aspect that is disconcerting. The first reading tells us that if we do not respect the widow and orphan then the anger of the Lord will flare up and he will kill us with the sword. Then our wives will be widows and our children orphans! This reading speaks of a vengeful intervention of God. The language of the law that we find frequently in the books of Exodus and Leviticus often has a threatening aspect, and we tend to find it off-putting. But such threatening words have an important significance in these legal texts. The Lord who governs history wishes to show that these laws are the laws of life. If one disobeys one of these laws, then he cuts himself off from life. These laws are not the legalistic regulations of a God who asks for meaningless regulations to be followed for obscure reasons. No, these laws give life to human beings and outside of these laws there is no life, in the authentic sense.

Are the commandments that Jesus gives us simply aids to living a better life? No, they are essential if we are to have life in the true sense of the word.

Now let us consider the words of the Gospel. A scholar of the law asks Jesus to give a synthesis of the Law, a pointer to the core instruction that must be followed. In response, Jesus gives the first commandment and then adds on a second commandment regarding love of neighbour. The importance of this second commandment was already recognized in the rabbinic literature of the time, so what Jesus is saying is not a huge novelty, but he is unifying the two commandments and stating that love of God and love of neighbour are inseparable aspects of the same thing. In the light of the first reading, we can appreciate better that these commandments are fundamental for authentic life. We might be inclined to think that love of God and love of neighbour are not fundamental to life. It seems possible to go on with our lives whilst ignoring God and neighbour. But the language of the legal texts of the Old Testament tell us that we cannot live if we are not obedient to these requirements. We can live in a biological sense without loving God with our entire heart, soul and mind. We can survive, carry on, adapt ourselves to a lower form of existence, but true life, life in the fullest sense, is simply impossible without the act of loving God and neighbour. Is the requirement to love God and neighbour some kind of optional extra? No it is absolutely necessary.

Our lives must be suffused with love of God and neighbour, but not love in a weak sense, love in a radical sense. All of our heart, all of our soul, all of our mind - these three faculties represent human completeness in the biblical sense.

The radical nature of the love spoken of by Jesus is expressed by the stipulation to love God with all of our heart, all of our mind and all of our soul. These human faculties represent completeness in the anthropology of the Bible. If love is not complete then it is not authentic. If I say that I will love this person for as long as it suits me, or up until a certain point of extremity, then such “love” is not genuine. It is something that I may or may not do, depending on the gravity of the situation. It is necessary not just to love, but to love authentically! It is fundamental for our happiness and is not an optional extra. Woe to us if we present God as something beneficial but not absolutely necessary for true life. And all of this applies equally to love of neighbour because it is the same act as that of loving God. Just as we cannot live without loving God, neither can we live in a complete sense without loving our neighbour. Our existence must be suffused with love if it is to be genuine. And we need to love in the deepest way, in a serious way, right to the end. This is not an appendix to our being but it is what constitutes our being. Let us cling to God so that he can teach us how to love! We need the grace that his love bestows upon us in order to forge relationships of genuine love with our neighbour. In Him alone is the root and origin of this necessity to love.