Contemplating today's Gospel: 200 priests comment on daily Gospel each day
Today's GospelListen to audio
Liturgic day: Sunday 30th (A) in Ordinary Time
Gospel text (Mt 22:34-40): When the Pharisees heard how Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they came together. One of them, a teacher of the Law, tried to test him with this question, «Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the Law?». Jesus answered, «‘You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind’. This is the first and the most important of the commandments. But after this there is another one very similar to it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’. The whole Law and the Prophets are founded on these two commandments».
Comment: Fr. Ramon SÀRRIAS i Ribalta (Andorra la Vella, Andorra)
You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart (…). You shall love your neighbor as yourself
Today,
the Church reminds us of our “attitude before life” («The
whole Law and the Prophets are founded on these two commandments»:
Mt 22:40). St. Matthew and St. Mark put these words upon Jesus
Christ's lips, St. Luke ascribes them to a Pharisee. But, as a
dialogue, always. Several times, Jesus Christ would be asked,
probably, similar questions. Jesus Christ replies with the beginning
of the Shema: prayer formed by two verses from the Deuteronomy
and one from the Numbers, which fervent Jews had to say at
least twice a day: «Hear O Israel! The Eternal, our God (...)».
By reciting it during their daily chores, they become God conscious,
while remembering the most important thing in their lives: To love
God, our Lord, above “everything and everyone” and our
neighbor as ourselves. Afterwards, when the Last Supper is over, and
with the example of the washing of the feet, Jesus Christ gives us a
“new commandment”: to love each other as He loves us,
with “divine strength” (cf. Jn
14:34-35).
We
need decision to practice “de facto” this sweet
commandment —which more than a commandment is elation and
capacity— in dealing with others: men and things, work and
leisure, spirit and matter, because they all are God's creatures.
On
the other hand, by being infused with God's Love, that overfills all
our being, we are able to respond to “the divine contents”
of this Love. Merciful God, who not only takes away the sin of the
world! (cf. Jn 1:29), but who divinizes us and makes us
“participants” (only Jesus Christ is the Son of God by
Nature) of the Divine Nature; the Holy Spirit bears testimony to our
human spirit that we are children of God through the Son. St.
Josemaria Escriva liked to speak of “deification”, word
with a certain tradition amongst the Fathers of the Church. For
Instance, St. Basil the Great wrote: «As clear, transparent
substances become very bright when sunlight falls on them and shine
with a new radiance, so also souls in whom the Spirit dwells, and who
are enlightened by the Spirit, become spiritual themselves and a
source of grace for others (…) and we enter into eternal
happiness and abide in God. Through the Spirit we acquire a likeness
to God; indeed, we attain what is beyond our most sublime
aspirations: we become God». Let us truly hope so!
