My dear
Brothers and Sisters,
In today’s
Gospel, Jesus is asked about the greatest commandment in the law. What can we
find in Torah? The book answer, of course is love of God. But Jesus does not
stop there. He goes on to give a more practical answer. He gives the other side
of the true love as well, which is love of neighbour. True love of God and true
love of neighbour are practically one and the same thing. As Jesus said: "You shall love the Lord
your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your
mind." This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like
it: "You shall love your neighbour as yourself." On these two
commandments hang all the law and the prophets"
(Matthew 22:37-40).
Love has so many facets and meanings to it – but one that is most
important is that love is an action. Jesus is
telling us here that love is something we do. Love is a choice, a decision, a
commitment to do things. That is why Jesus is commanding us to love others. It's
what we do to others not how we feel toward them that matters. Love for
God is translated into love of neighbor just as love for neighbor witnesses to
the authenticity of our love of God. Our actions flow out of our values – God
is our highest value. Christ clearly distinguishes between love of God and love
of neighbor, calling love of God the first
and greatest commandment
and love of neighbor the second. But
even though he distinguishes them in this
way, Jesus does not separate them. Faithfulness to God
cannot be separated from our practice of justice in everyday life.
Jesus is
here reacting against a one-dimensional understanding of love. For Jesus, true
love must express itself in three dimensions. These three dimensions are (a) love of God, (b) love of neighbour, and (c)
love of oneself. The first two are positively commanded; the last one is
not commanded but presumed to be the basis of all loving. The commandment to
love your neighbour as yourself presumes that you love yourself.
Jesus gives
us the two great commandments as the summary of our whole life of faith. Indeed
our worship of God expresses this truth that we love God with our whole heart,
mind and soul. God receives our totality: All of our energy, all of our
consciousness, all of our life. And this is also our challenge – to live our
life for God alone – with everything.
As Christ
sees it, friendship with God is that first thing on which our love of neighbor
depends. Hence, taking a moderate time apart to cultivate our friendship
with God is not taking “quality time” away from our neighbors. It ensures
instead that the time we spend with them is “quality;” for prayer changes the
quality of our love, salting our love with divine fire. The whole law and the prophets depend on
these two commandments (Mt 22:39-40).
The
existential realities of this great commandment flow out of their interior
qualities. The heart is full of compassion, the soul with desire, and the mind
makes decisions. This helps us to move to the concrete, to the action of love. We
are invited to be in touch with our desire for God and with God’s desire for us
which propels us to live with compassion and therefore to choose to act in love
for others over and over. Our worship brings us to a deeper desire for God and
a heightened awareness of others which deepens our compassion and therefore our
decision to act with justice. This is the cycle that is life giving to our
faith. Hence, those who say, 'I love God,' and hate their
brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister
whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen"
(1 John 4:20).
Let us open
ourselves even more to God’s love, and let our desire for God deepen so much –
that we grow in our capacity to love others, love neighbour as ourselves. Amen.
Fr. Joseph Pham Quoc Van, O.P.
