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To: All
31st Sunday: What's most important?

 
"You are not far from the kingdom of God"

The Word: http://usccb.org/bible/readings/110412.cfm
 
Deut 6: 2-6
Hb 7: 23-2
Mk 12: 28-34


“What is our reason for loving God? God himself is the reason we love him; we love him because he is the supreme and infinite goodness. What is our reason for loving ourselves? Surely because we are the image and likeness of God. And since all men and women possess this same dignity we love them as ourselves, that is, as holy and living images of the Godhead.
It must always be understood, however, that we love our neighbors for this reason, that they are made in the image and likeness of God, created to communicate in his goodness, share in his grace, and rejoice in his glory.
To have a Christian love for our neighbors is to love God in them, or them in God; it is to cherish God alone for his own sake, and his creatures for love of him.”
St. Francis de Sales
Francis de Sales, the 17th century Bishop of Geneva, Switzerland, known for his gentleness and charity, wrote these words above.  He has become known as the “Gentleman Saint.” That surely implies a way in which he presented himself to others and the way in which he would deal with people on a day to day basis.  A gentleman or lady implies respectful behavior, good example, politeness, a proper composure, appropriate dress, acceptability, and other such sort of social qualities. The above quote reflects our readings this Sunday on the love of God and neighbor.

Yet, some may view the polite and respectful as those who really are just a stuffed shirt and unwilling to break loose and take chances or live on the edge. But, what God asks of us in our readings this week casts itself back thousands of years – to that moment when God revealed himself to the ancient Hebrew people on Mt. Sinai through Moses, his chosen messenger. We're not called to be stuffed shirts but to relate with the living and true God.

As the Book of Deuteronomy proclaims today, what is referred to as the great Shema: “Hear , O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone! Therefore, you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.  Take to heart these words which I enjoin on you today.”

God speaks to the people of Israel to resist compromise with foreign false gods and to turn their entire being, heart, mind, soul, and strength, to the living and loving God who has called them to be his people.  Through them, salvation will come to all humankind.

As St. Francis de Sales reminds us, “God himself is the reason we love him; we love him because he is the supreme and infinite goodness.”

We love God because he is God and ourselves and our neighbor because we are made in the image of God.  What could be more fundamental than that?  It implies that we behave in ways that reflect this belief – this command really from God.  It is a command that is pointed not only to a nation – “Hear O Israel” – but also to individuals as well in which God wants faithful individuals to form a faithful community.

This love of God and neighbor, as the two greatest commandments, was somewhat of a test by Jesus of a local scribe.  At the heart of Jewish law, was this fundamental principle based upon the Ten Commandments.  The first Commandment to love God above all other gods (Commandments 1 – 3) and our Neighbor – (Commandments 4 – 10) in Ex 20: 1 – 17, is indeed the summary of all Jewish legal structure.  This was a revelation of the Covenant made between God and humanity.  Certainly not a covenant between equal parties but an desire of the overwhelming love of the creator to relate on a personal level with his creatures at the top of the created order – man and woman. The Scribe was attempting to verify if Jesus knew that for at times his teaching may have sounded a bit more lax or liberal in pushing the edge of literal understanding.

For our Lord clearly expanded the notion of neighbor beyond our fellow Jew.  His reaching out to those considered “unclean” (leper, blind, lame, crippled, tax collectors, adulterers, gentile, etc) raised the legalistic eyebrows of those considered to be experts in the law. Certainly, Jesus’ treatment of women was unprecedented for an honored rabbi. Yet, even in Jewish law charity could be extended to the alien but only love offered to one’s fellow Jew.

Our Catholic tradition should take great pride in what our Church has done to assist the poor and unfortunate; to bring compassion to those who are forgotten and helpless; to educate the ignorant and form them in Gospel values.  Our Catholic sponsored Schools and Universities, our charitable institutions, hospitals and health care facilities all reflect the great mission of the Church. They are charity in action based upon what is always first for us – to orient our life priorities beginning with our faithfulness to God alone. No small task! There is a hierarchy of importance here.  Love God first above all things and then love for your neighbor will follow in kind. Your neighbor begins at home by the way.

Doesn’t love for neighbor begin with a love of God first?  In the case of Christians, it begins with faith in Jesus Christ.  As one follows the other we have the basic structure around which to live our lives. And, as one a seeks out the Spirit’s guidance in our lives, we can live out this great Shema with faithfulness.

At the top of our life pyramid as it were, what (who) do we find? Do I see my neighbor as God sees them?  No, Christian charity is not always easy or comfortable.  But if God is not my most important value, I will naturally find something else to fill that void – and it may not always be of God. Our gatherings at Eucharist are intended to be an illustration of this “faithful community.” What can we learn as a take home lesson from those sacred times?

Fr. Tim

48 posted on 11/04/2012 8:44:35 PM PST by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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To: All
Insight Scoop

Faith-filled love and the greatest commandment

A Scriptural Reflection on the Readings for Sunday, November 4, 2012 | Carl E. Olson

Readings:
• Dt 6:2-6
• Ps 18:2-3, 3-4, 47, 51
• Heb 7:23-28
• Mk 12:28-34

What is the most common subject of popular music? Answer: love.

The Beatles claimed “All We Need Is Love.” Robert Palmer confessed he was “Addicted to Love.” “I Want To Know What Love Is” admitted the rock group Foreigner. Mariah Carey had a “Vision of Love.” Queen pondered that “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.” A full listing would require a book.

But how many Top Forty songs have been about love for God? You don’t need to be a music critic to recognize that the love referred to in most pop and rock songs is either romantic love or something mistaken for love: infatuation, sexual attraction, or simply lust. What so often passes for love in our culture is actually the complete opposite of authentic love. Instead of being sacrificial, it is self-seeking; rather than giving, it takes; instead of long-suffering, it is short-term. As Pope Benedict XVI remarked in his encyclical, “God Is Love” (Deus Caritas Est), “Eros, reduced to pure ‘sex’, has become a commodity, a mere ‘thing’ to be bought and sold, or rather, man himself becomes a commodity” (par. 5).

The love spoken of by Jesus in today’s Gospel is agape, that is, the Holy Father states, a “love grounded in and shaped by faith” (par. 7). When human love—whether love for a spouse, a child, a friend, or one’s country—is informed, shaped, and filled with God’s love it becomes whole and authentic. Put another way, it is rightly ordered to its proper end, which is God.

The scribe who asked the question, “Which is the first of all the commandments?” apparently did so out of sincere curiosity. He posed the question after overhearing the dispute between Jesus and the Sadducees over the general resurrection of the dead, a belief the Sadducees denied (Mk 12:18-27). This scribe, like all scribes, was an expert in the many technical details of applying the Mosaic Law in specific cases. There were 613 commandments in the Law, so the answer to his question was not  simple or obvious. In responding, Jesus referred immediately and directly to the First Commandment: “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, with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mk 12:29-30; cf. Dt 6:5).

It was this commandment, more than any other, which marked the Hebrews as a unique, chosen people.

“Jesus united into a single precept this commandment of love for God,” writes Pope Benedict, “and the commandment of love for neighbour found in the Book of Leviticus: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’ (19:18; cf. Mk 12:29-31). Since God has first loved us (cf. 1 Jn 4:10), love is now no longer a mere ‘command’; it is the response to the gift of love with which God draws near to us” (par. 1). How we treat neighbors and strangers alike reveals something essential about our love, or lack of love, for God. As the book of Deuteronomy states, "Cursed be he who perverts the justice due to the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow", and, "Cursed be he who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them" (Dt 27:19, 26).

In speaking of Jesus’ response, the Holy Father emphasizes that this love “is not simply a matter of morality.” After all, atheists can give money to the poor and agnostics can build homeless shelters. “Being Christian,” Benedict explains, “is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction” (par. 1).

Our love is really love when it flows from the heart transformed by the One who first loved us, who created us, and who gave His life for us. This love is not abstract or academic but concrete and personal.

Love is so powerful because it God is love and He made us to be loved and to love others. “God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 Jn 4:16). Sadly, we live in a world that is out of tune when it comes to real love. It is our joyful duty to sing, with the Psalmist, “I love you, Lord, my strength!”

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in a slightly different form in the October 26, 2008, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)


49 posted on 11/04/2012 8:46:15 PM PST by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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