30th Sunday in Ordinary Reflection

10-18-2020Weekly Reflection

The Book of the Covenant in Exodus asks the Jews to extend charity toward the poor and the weak. A charity to a neighbor that is compassionate, hands on, and applied even in small things. The Gospel tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves, especially the poor and the marginalized. Matthew positions love of neighbor after the foremost commandment, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with your whole soul, and with all your mind. For this reason, Jews practice it by putting into heart this most important commandment, the Shema Israel.

The Commandment to Love God and Neighbor

Matthew emphasizes in this text the unity between the two greatest commandments to love God and to love our neighbor. The commandment to love takes preference then any other commandment. To explain and reveal the meaning of the Ten Commandments, the Pharisees came up with 613 laws, positive and negative. Unfortunately, it became a burden more than a relief, that even the best effort of a pious Jew often falls short. By teaching the greatest commandment, Jesus has effectively reduced the 613 laws into one encompassing perfect commandment.

The novelty of this new commandment is putting into one, two commandments, the 1st coming from Deut. 6:5 and the 2nd from Lev. 19:18. John the Evangelist puts it perfectly in (1 Jn.4:20): if anyone says, my love is fixed on God, yet hates his brother, he is a liar. One who has no love for the brother he can see, cannot love God he has not seen. The symbol of this greatest love is the cross. The sign of God's love for man and Son's love for God is the cross. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. (Phil. 2:8)

The commandment reveals the only way in which man can give the ultimate proof of his love for God is by his love of neighbor. Church attendance, time for prayer, and the number of devotions is not the measure of love if one is mean toward others, selfish, and prideful. Real charity is a life of prayer founded in our relationship with God, neighbor, and a charity in action.

Love is the greatest commandment. The fact that our Lord puts the two commandments together as one, unity out of so many commandments, proves that love is the greatest commandment. If there is no trace of love in a commandment, it is a waste of time. The commandment to love keeps all other commandments in place and in shape. Mercy, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, and forbearances are just different names or different angles of love. But on top of all virtues, put on love, which binds the rest together and makes them perfect. An example of love that places everything in place or in shape: An orient man wearing long robes which are kept in place and pulled up by a belt so he would not step on the robe, stumble and fall. Love acts in this way.

He who has charity has eternal life. Three things remain on earth: faith, hope, and charity. But while faith gives way to vision in heaven (2 Cor.5:7), hope to possession (Rom.8:24), charity remains throughout eternity.

Remember, the heart is the center of knowing and feeling, the soul is the principle of life and the source of all energies, and the mind is the center of perception. It means that we have to love God with everything we have: a wholehearted love, not laidback but dynamic, not phlegmatic but outgoing, not introverted, perform with conviction, not careless and halfhearted but courageous and committed.