8 MARCH 2024
FRIDAY, THIRD WEEK OF LENT
Hosea 14:1-9
Psalm 81
Mark 12:28-34
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Dear friends, the gospel reading of today presents to us the question asked Jesus by one of the scribes, and Jesus' intelligent answer to him. In the time of Jesus, it was understood that there were 613 regulations in the Jewish Law. The scribe is looking up to Jesus to pick out the one most important commandment that underpins all the others. He wanted Jesus to help him to get to the heart of all these regulations. Jesus gave him what he was looking for; indeed, he gave him more than he desired. Jesus not only gave him the most important commandment; love of God, he gave him the second most important commandment as well: love of neighbor. Jesus could not give him one without giving him the other, because, for Jesus, there were inseparable. Yet, even though they were inseparable, they were not equal; one was first and the other was second, but the fulfillment of the first lies in the keeping of the second. Even though we cannot love God without loving our neighbor, the love of God is more fundamental than the love of neighbor. Only God is worthy of all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, and all our strength. God is worthy of our all, because it is only God who gives us all. As Paul says in his letter to the Romans, ‘God, who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?’ Our calling here and now, and our ultimate destiny, is to love God as God loves us. How well and deep do we love God?
Very often in the gospels, Jesus and the scribes; the experts in the Jewish Law, are at odds with one another. But here, both Jesus and the scribe in the gospel agree that what matters most in the Jewish faith is the love of God's commandments; to love God with all one’s being and to love our neighbor as we would ourselves. It is possible that the scribe would have understood ‘neighbor’ as his fellow scribe, his fellow Jewish neighbor, but it is clear from the gospels that Jesus understood neighbor in the most broadest possible sense, as our fellow human being. These two love commandments have a status far above all the other commandments and regulations in the Jewish Law. It is in loving God in this complete way that we can love others with the love of God, in the way God loves them. There is, however, something that comes before even these two commandments, and that is God love for us first. In today’s first reading from the prophecy of Hosea, God says, ‘I will love them with all my heart’. Our love of God with all our heart is always in response to God’s love of us with all of God’s heart. As Saint John says in his first letter, ‘We love because God first loved us’. This is the good news that comes before any commandment. It is in hearing this good news and allowing ourselves to be touched by God’s love that we will be empowered to love God in return with all our being and to love our neighbor as ourselves.
Notice that when the scribe asked Jesus which was the first of all the commandments, Jesus replied by giving him not just the first but the second as well, since the first cannot be kept without the keeping of the second. In quoting those two commandments, Jesus speaks of three loves, the love of God, the love of neighbor and the love of self. He connects these three loves very closely together; he suggests that they are all of a piece. Yet, he clearly declares that the first love in our lives is to be the love of God. Jesus is saying that the most important and right relationship in our lives is our relationship with God. That relationship is right if it is a relationship of love. God is to be loved above all else, God is to be loved with all our being. Our love of God is always a response to God’s love of us. Knowing that God loves us with all of God’s heart, enables us to love God with all our heart. It is our loving relationship with God that will make it possible for us to recognize God in ourselves and in others, and to love ourselves and others as God’s good creation, as images of God.
Love of God and love of neighbor are the ultimate in our journey to the Father. If we truly love God, then we will turn away from our sinfulness, our evil ways. If we truly love God, then we will listen to His voice as the psalmist tells us today: ‘’I am the Lord your God: listen to my voice.’’ So, as we continue our Lenten journey, let us examine how deep our love for God and neighbor is.
MAY GOD'S GRACE AND PEACE BE WITH YOU.
-PadreCharlesLwanga.
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