For the past few Sundays, St. Mark has presented various individuals who stop Jesus as he makes his way to Jerusalem: the rich young man seeking the path to salvation; James and John wanting places of honor; and the blind beggar Bartimaeus seeking a cure.
Today it’s a scribe, who asks Our Lord to render a legal opinion: “Which is the first of all the commandments?” which is to say, the most important commandment of the 613 precepts of Mosaic Law. Jesus replies by quoting the first part of the Shemá, from Deuteronomy: “Shemá Israel—Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” It was what a devout Jew would recite every morning and evening and it is still the verse affixed to the door of every Jewish house.
But then Our Lord does something that no Rabbi had ever done before. He unites this first commandment to with one from Leviticus: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” He renders them inseparable. He teaches that love of God goes hand in hand with love of our neighbor. We cannot have one without the other. Our love of neighbor is the measure of our love of God.
But how can we do this? Some people of course, are easy to love—those who are good to us, those whose company we enjoy. But our Lord said, “If you love those who love you, what merit is there in that?” What about those people we find unlovable…those who have wronged us, hurt, or betrayed us? What of the difficult people we encounter…those who annoy us and get under our skin? We tend to avoid them as much as possible, but is this the Christian response? How can we fulfill the Lord’s commandment of love?
One way is by prayer…not prayer that Lord rain down fire and brimstone upon them…but prayer that God soften our own heart and replace our anger and hurt with kindness and understanding…and prayer asking God to work in their hearts as well.
Another way is to keep guard over our speech. When we find someone difficult, it is very easy to fall into the sin of gossip or calumny. Pope Francis said, “If any of us gossips, he is certainly a persecutor and violent.” Let’s not be blind to our own shortcomings and sins. Cardinal Basil Hume was very frank and even disconcerting about his own when he wrote,
“In a very bad moment, I think about the relief my demise will bring to some people. I do worry about the insensitive and clumsy ways I have handled some people, about my selfishness…No, I won’t go on listing my faults here. ‘Don’t forget,’ I once heard a great Abbot say, ‘when you are dead, somebody will be relieved…’”
Realizing our own foibles, let us be silent about those of others. Let’s look within before looking around! I like the rhyme of Archabbot Lambert Reilly: “There is so much good in the worst of us and so much bad in the best of us that it behooves none of us to talk about the rest of us!” If we have to speak at all about a difficult or unlovable person, our words should accentuate the positive. Cardinal Hume invites us to think of our own experience. He asks, “Have you ever instinctively disliked a person, until one day somebody tells you that person rather likes or admires you, and your attitude changes. But you warm to that person because you suddenly discover what you mean to them.” This is possible when a difficult person comes to know that we have spoken well of him or her.
Fulfilling the command to love is not for weaklings. It takes strength, courage, and patience. Let us ask for the Lord for this grace.
Come Holy Spirit. set us on fire with greater love for Jesus and with the strength to love God in our neighbor. Come and heal our insecurities, wounds, fears, and sufferings. Help us to love those in our midst that we deem “unlovable;” especially those who have hurt us and those we find difficult to see and to love as Jesus does.
