THE WORD BECAME FLESH

Thursday of ninth week in Ordinary Time, 2021

Memorial of Saint Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs

Tobit 6:10-11; 7:1bcde, 9-17; 8:4-9a

Ps 25

Mark 12:28:34

Love God, Love thy neighbour

We live in a world with all kinds of competing demands on us. There can be a great deal coming at us more or less at the same time. This is all the more so since the advent of the various forms of digital communications. We need to prioritize when faced with such an array of stimuli. The need to prioritize has always been there. It is there in this morning’s gospel reading (Mk 12:28-34). 

One of the scribes asks Jesus which of the more than 600 commandments in the Jewish Law takes priority over all others. Jesus is clear in his response. The first commandment is the commandment to love God with all our being, heart, soul, mind and strength. We don’t often think of love as a commandment. We are more likely to think of it as a feeling or an emotion. Yet, for Jesus and the Jewish tradition, love could be commanded because it was about behaviour; it was a way of life. Loving God with all our being involved certain forms of behaviour related to prayer and worship. 

However, Jesus gives his questioner more than he asked for, not just the most important commandment, but the second most important commandment. He thereby declared that these two commandments are inseparable. The second commandment also commanded love, the love of neighbour. This love could also be commanded because it was more than a feeling; it was a way of behaving towards the other which placed the well-being of the other before one’s own. Jesus implies that if we truly love God with all our being we will be caught up into God’s love for all humanity.

Let us pray: We love you, O God, and we desire to love you more and more. Grant to us that we may love you as much as we desire and as much as we ought. Amen.

+Remain blessed