Throughout his public ministry Our Lord was inundated with questions by friends and enemies alike. Today he answers a question posed by a scholar of the Law: “Which commandment of the Law is the greatest?” We have to remember that with 613 precepts to be followed, it was easy for an observant Jew to lose focus. Our Lord brings the focus back by citing not one commandment but two.
He quotes from Deuteronomy: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” and then adds the second from Leviticus: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus unites these two commandments and would have us see them as inseparable and affirm that love for our neighbor is the measure of our love for God, Yes, there were many precepts, good and valid—Our Lord does not belittle them—but points out that what is essential in the law is love.
We can understand that God is worthy of all our love and we strive to show that love by being here today, by our prayer, by taking in his word, by living a sacramental life and by being faithful to the duties of our vocation. But Jesus reminds us that this is only one side of the coin. We cannot love God without loving our neighbor. They go hand in hand. It is senseless to profess our love for God and fulfill our religious duties, and at the same time ignore the poor, hold resentment toward another, gossip about people, deceive or cheat them.
Our love for God is shown by a genuine or sincere love of our neighbor. I say a genuine or sincere love because we may do many good things without love—doing them only out of obligation or the desire to appear good to others.
Let’s be honest—some people are easy to love—those who are good to us in many ways and those whose company we enjoy. But Our Lord warns us: “If you love those who love you, what merit is there in that?”
Let’s be honest—some people are hard to love. The Lord’s command to love is a wide embrace. What about those we regard as unlovable or unattractive? What of those who have wronged or hurt us? Whatever we might think of them, God loves them just as he loves me—with all my faults! What matters is not that person’s worth to me but that person’s worth to God.
Thomas Merton wrote: “Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody's business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors’ worthy.” Our Lord does not grant us the prerogative to distinguish—I will love here but not there.
But it’s not surprising that we struggle to fulfill this precept because we often hold on to past injuries and prejudices. We may also struggle because our neighbor may be at the same time our enemy—and our Lord bids us to love and pray for our enemies. To help us that effort we need God’s grace through the Eucharist, Confession, and our daily prayer. C.S. Lewis said, “Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.” Don’t we often need God’s grace to see that?
“All we need is love,” sang the Beatles—not a bad message—as long as our love is a reflection of God’s love and as long as our love is sincere. St. John of the Cross reminds us: “In the twilight of life, God will not judge us on our earthly possessions and human successes, but on how well we have loved.” How well we have loved God and loved him in our neighbor!
