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From: Deuteronomy 6:4-13

The Shema

(Moses said to the people,) [4] “Hear; 0 Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD;
[5] and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your
soul, and with all your might. [6] And these words which I command you this
day shall be upon your heart; [7] and you shall teach them diligently to your chil-
dren, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by
the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. [8] And you shall bind them
as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. [9]
And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

An Appeal for Faithfulness

[10] “And when the LORD your God brings you into the land which he swore to
your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you, with great and good-
ly cities, which you did not build, [11] and houses full of all good things, which you
did not fill, and cisterns hewn out, which you did not hew, and vineyards and olive
trees, which you did not plant, and when you eat and are full, [12] then take heed
lest you forget the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the
house of bondage. [13] You shall fear the LORD your God; you shall serve him,
and swear by his name.”

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Commentary:

6:19. This is a very moving text and one of special importance for the faith and
life of the chosen people. The high-point comes at v. 5, which is reminiscent of
other pages of the Old Testament (Deut 10:12; Hos 2:21-22; 6:6). The love
which God seeks from Israel is preceded by God’s love for Israel (cf. Deut 5:32-
33). Here we touch one of the central points of God’s revelation to mankind,
both in the Old and in the New Testament: over and above everything else,
God is love (cf., e.g., 1 Jn 4:8-16).

Verse 4 is a clear, solemn profession of monotheism, which is a distinctive fea-
ture of Israel that marks it out from the nations round about (cf. the note on 5:6-
10). The first Hebrew word of v. 4 (”shema”: “Hear”) has given its name to the
famous prayer which the Israelites recited over the centuries and which is made
up largely of 6:4:9; 11:18-21 and Numbers 5:37-41. Pious Jews still say it today,
every morning and evening. In the Catholic Church, vv. 4-7 are said at Compline
after first vespers on Sundays and solemnities in the Liturgy of Hours.

The exhortations in vv. 8-9 were given a literal interpretation by the Jews: this is
the origin of phylacteries and of the “mezuzah”. Phylacteries were short tassels
or tapes which were attached to the forehead and to the left arm, and each tas-
sel held a tiny box containing a biblical text, the two Deuteronomy texts of the
“Shema” plus Exodus 3:1-10, 11-16; in our Lord’s time the Pharisees wore wider
tassels to give the impression that they were particularly observant of the Law
(cf. Mt 23:5). The “mezuzah” is a small box, attached to the doorposts of
houses, which contains a parchment or piece of paper inscribed with the two
texts from Deuteronomy referred to; Jews touch the “mezuzah” with their fin-
gers, which they then kiss, on entering or leaving the house.

6:5. God asks Israel for all its love. Yet, is love something that can be made the
subject of a commandment? What God asks of Israel, and of each of us, is not
a mere feeling which man cannot control; it is something that has to do with the
will. It is an affection which can and should be cultivated by taking to heart, ever-
more profoundly, our filial relationship with our Father; as the New Testament (1
Jn 4:10,19) will later put it: “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he
loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins.[...] We love, because
he first loved us.” That is why God can indeed promulgate the precept of love;
as he does in this verse of Deuteronomy (6:5) and further on in 10:12-13.

“With all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (v. 5): the
wording shows that love for God should be total. Our Lord will quote these verses
(4-5), which were so familiar to his listeners, when identifying the first and most
important of the commandments (cf Mt 12:29-30).

“When someone asks him ‘Which commandment in the Law is the greatest?’
(Mt 22:36), Jesus replies: ‘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 com-
mandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On
these two commandments hang all the Law and the prophets’ (Mt 22:37-40; cf.
Deut 6:5; Lev 19:18). The Decalogue must be interpreted in light of this twofold
yet single commandment of love, the fullness of the Law” (”Catechism of the
Catholic Church”, 2055).

6:13. The exhortation to fear of the Lord is to be found often in Deuteronomy and
in the entire Old Testament. It does not mean an irrational fear or terror in regard
to Yahweh. Fear of the Lord is, rather, a rule of behavior, equivalent to being faith-
ful to the Covenant, obeying the commandments, walking in the way of the Lord,
serving him with all one’s heart (cf. 10:12); it is a fear which means that one fears
nothing else—enemies or strange gods (cf. e.g., 5:7; 6:14; 11:16). In practice, a
“God-fearing” Jew is a devout Jew (cf., e.g., 1 Kings 18:3; Lk 1:50).

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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States. We encourage readers to purchase
The Navarre Bible for personal study. See Scepter Publishers for details.

“Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” — St Jerome

“The Father uttered one Word; that Word is His Son, and He utters Him forever
in everlasting silence: and in silence the soul has to hear it.
— St John of the Cross

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (To the Greater Glory of God)

For: Saturday, August 8, 2015

18th Week in Ordinary Time

Memorial: St Domenic, Priest

From: Deuteronomy 6:4-13

The Shema

An Appeal for Faithfulness

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Commentary:

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.

From: Matthew 17:14-20

The Curing of an Epileptic Boy

[14] And when they came to the crowd, a man came up to him and kneeling be-
fore him said, [15] “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he
suffers terribly; for often he falls into the fire, and often into the water. [16] And I
brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him.” [17] And Jesus an-
swered, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long am I to be with you? How
long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me.” [18] And Jesus rebuked him,
and the demon came out of him, and the boy was cured instantly. [19] Then the
disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” [20]
He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have
faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move hence to
yonder place,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.”

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Commentary:

14-21. This episode of the curing of the boy shows both Christ’s omnipotence
and the power of prayer full of faith. Because of his deep union with Christ, a
Christian shares, through faith, in God’s own omnipotence, to such an extent
that Jesus actually says on another occasion, “he who believes in me will also
do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go
to the Father” (Jn 14:12).

Our Lord tells the Apostles that if they had faith they would be able to work mi-
racles, to move mountains. “Moving mountains” was probably a proverbial sa-
ying. God would certainly let a believer move a mountain if that were necessary
for his glory and for the edification of one’s neighbor; however, Christ’s promise
is fulfilled everyday in a much more exalted way. Some Fathers of the Church
(St. Jerome, St. Augustine) say that “a mountain is moved” every time someone
is divinely aided to do something which exceed man’s natural powers. This clear-
ly happens in the work of our sanctification, which the Paraclete effects in our
souls when we are docile to him and receive with faith and love the grace given
us in the sacraments: we benefit from the sacraments to a greater or lesser de-
gree depending on the dispositions with which we receive them. Sanctification
is something more sublime than moving mountains, and it is something which
is happening every day in so many holy souls, even though most people do not
notice it.

The Apostles and many saints down the centuries have in fact worked amazing
material miracles; but the greatest and most important miracles were, are and
will be the miracles of souls dead through sin and ignorance being reborn and
developing in the new life of the children of God.

20. Here and in the parable of Matthew 13:31-32 the main force of the compari-
son lies in the fact that a very small seed — the mustard seed — produces a
large shrub up to three meters (ten feet) high: even a very small act of genuine
faith can produce surprising results.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.