"Love your God"

 

31^ST WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

(Deut 6:2-6) (Heb 7: 23-28) (Mk 12:28-34)

"Love your God"

If we reflect upon the life of Jesus, it is full of challenges and various questions. He was surrounded by the teachers of the Law at the age of twelve. But Jesus answered all their questions with divine intelligence. In Jesus’ ministry the tax collectors, Pharisees, Scribe and the teachers of the Law had been seeking to blame Jesus that he is not the Son of God. They always used to make plan to find fault in His teaching. But they failed in front of the divinity of Jesus.

In today’s Gospel also they are asking different kinds of questions. One of the teachers of the Law also asked the question that which commandment is the first of all. To understand the mind of Jesus, first of all we must understand what is commandment! Why the teacher asked question about the commandment?

 

A commandment is the written or an oral requirement. It has various names such as, Decalogue, Ten Commandments and Torah. When we study the Jewish Scripture we come across that they were given to Moses at Mount Sinai for the moral and religious welfare for God’s chosen people (Ex 20: 1-17). The term commandment appears over 180 times in the Old Testament. This term 90 percent used to refer to God’s requirements of Israel stipulated in the Pentateuch (first five books of the Bible). The Catechism of the Catholic Church also points out that the Decalogue or Ten Commandments integrate human beings’ relationship with God and with other persons. Thus the climax of the Decalogue, the pinnacle of the Torah is the love. The one who loves God will keep His commandment. When we reflect upon the New Testament (Christian Scripture) again the summit of the Decalogue is to love God above all things and love ones neighbour.

Now it is very clear that why one of the Scribe asked the question about the commandment. He also wanted to test Jesus whether he will contradict the concept of the Decalogue. When Jesus was asked about the first of all commandments, Jesus made his own Shema, the confession that the Lord is one, then summarized the Law as the double commandment to love God totally and love ones neighbor. Thus Jesus quotes the Jewish Scripture and universalizes these commandments into two the first is, hear O Israel: … love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, with your complete mind, and with all your power. And the second one is to love ones neighbor. Jesus emphasized to love God using all the important faculties of the human body the heart, soul, mind and strength. Because this One God revealed himself to Moses, saved the Israelite from the bondage of Egyptian, fed them with Manna from heaven, quench their thirst with water flowed from rock, enlightened their way with the burning clouds.

Following the teachings of Jesus St. Paul also highlights the importance of love and says that “And now faith, hope and love abide, these three, and greatest of these is love” (1 Cor 13:13). St. John the Apostle of love spoke about the love of God. God is love by His very essence. He says God so loved the world that He gave his only Son. Today our greatest treasure is Jesus Himself. John says: “keeping in mind that in this love, not that we first love God, but He loved us and sent His only begotten Son to be the expiation of our sins.” Thus Father loved us and gave us His Son. And Son loved us and gave us even the last drop of his blood, His very life on the Cross. When we love someone there are challenges to face. As Jesus ask Peter do you love me? He replied yes! Then Jesus said take my sheep and them pasture them. Today Jesus set before us a big challenge to love God above all and to love ones neighbor, crossing all the boundaries of race and caste. This two-fold love is much more important than all kinds of burnt offerings and sacrifices.

Following the teachings of Jesus St. Paul also highlights the importance of love and says that “And now faith, hope and love abide, these three, and greatest of these is love” (1 Cor 13:13). St. John the Apostle of love spoke about the love of God. God is love by His very essence. He says God so loved the world that He gave his only Son. Today our greatest treasure is Jesus Himself. John says: “In this love, not that we love God, but He loved us and sent His only Son to be the expiation of our sins.” Thus Father loved us and gave us His Son. And Son loved us and gave us even the last drop of his blood, His very life on the Cross. When we love someone there are challenges to face. As Jesus ask Peter do you love me? He replied yes! Then Jesus said take my sheep and them pasture them. Today Jesus set before us a big challenge to love God above all and to love ones neighbor, crossing all the boundaries of race and caste. This two-fold love is much more important than all kinds of burnt offerings and sacrifices.

Jesus's conversations with the strict forerunners in Jerusalem proceed in this Gospel episode. The answer is Jesus' own outline of what the law of God requires, and it has become acknowledged as a short enunciation of the entire moral law. His answer passes on them without anything to say. On the off chance that we return to the old expression of the law of God in the Ten Commandments we track down no clear reference to cherish of God and love of neighbor. Jesus draws together every one of the edicts under these two headings. How treats mean by affection? Love of God is our thankful reaction to the adoration shown by God over the course of salvation. Love of neighbor is represented in our first perusing, from the book of Exodus, with its unequivocal directions from the law about focusing on those out of luck, the stranger, the widow, and the nomadic. Our activities should be directed by worry to bring about some benefit for other people, and a consciousness of their requirements. We might see that Jesus doesn't allude to the adoration he personally shows. It isn't until the Gospel of John, with its significant reflection on the activities of Jesus that we hear Jesus saying: 'Love each other as I have loved you.' (John 13:34) It is in his self-giving passing on the cross that his affection comes to a peak. This incomparable demonstration of adoration is the model for the love Christians should show. The adoration shown by the Son of God in going to his demise, which is available for us in the Eucharist, brings us into more profound love, for God and for neighbor. St Paul proceeds in the primary letter to the Thessalonians to adulate their Christian observer. Their lives, which have been restored with a supernatural conviction, have attracted others to the gospel. 'The fresh insight about your confidence in God has spread all over the place,' composes Paul. They presently live in assumption for the arrival of the risen Christ.

 

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