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Master·evangeli.net

Today's Gospel + short theological explanation

Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)
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Gospel text (Mk 12,28-34): A teacher of the Law had been listening to this discussion and admired how Jesus answered them. So he came up and asked him, «Which commandment is the first of all?». Jesus answered, «The first is: ‘Hear, Israel! The Lord, our God, is One Lord; and you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength’. And after this comes another one: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’. There is no commandment greater than these two» (…).

The first commandment (you shall love God) and the second (you shall love your neighbour) form a single precept

EDITORIAL TEAM evangeli.net (based on texts by Benedict XVI) (Città del Vaticano, Vatican)

Today, while one of the scribes asks about the “first” commandment, Jesus speaks of two commandments, which actually form a single precept. Thus appears the essential interaction between loving God and loving our neighbour. Anyway both come out of the love emanated from God, who loved us first.

Without the connection with God, we will see in our neighbour only the “other” without being able to recognize in him God’s image. On the contrary if we totally forget the attention to the other, just wishing to be “pious”, the relationship with God also disappears: it will be just a “correct” relationship, but without love. Only my availability to help my neighbour, to show love for him, makes me also open to God. Only the readiness to serve my neighbour opens my eyes to all God does for me and to the extent of his love for me.

—The Saints developed the capacity to love their neighbour in an always new way thanks to their meeting the Lord and vice versa: love grows through Love!