You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart

Gospel of the Day (Matthew 22:34-40)

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them (a scholar of the law) tested him by asking, Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?

He said to him, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

This is the greatest and the first commandment.

The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments."

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Reflections:

"You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart"

We have received from God a natural tendency to carry out what he commands us to do and so we cannot rebel as though he were requiring something altogether unusual of us nor boast of ourselves as though we were giving out more than what has been given to us... By receiving the love commandment from God we have automatically come to possess from the first the natural faculty of loving. We did not find out about this from outside ourselves; each of us can realise it for themself since we naturally seek the beautiful...; without anyone needing to teach us, we love those who are related to us by blood or by marriage; and, finally, we show kindness to those who are kind to us.

Now, what could be more beautiful than the beauty of God?... What other desire is so burning as the thirst God stirs up in the purified soul who cries out with heartfelt emotion: «I am faint with love»? (Sg 2,5)... This beauty is invisible to bodily eyes; only the soul and the intellect can grasp it. Whenever it has shone on the saints it has left within them the dart of such a great desire that they cried out: «Woe is me that my sojourning is prolonged» (Ps 120[119],5), «When shall I go and behold the face of God?» (Ps 42,[41],3) and «I long to depart this life and be with Christ» (Phil 1,23). «Athirst is my soul for the living God» (Ps 42[41],3)... This is how people naturally aspire towards the beautiful. But the good is also supremely lovable. Now, God is good; therefore all seek the good; therefore all seek God...

If children's love for their parents is a natural feeling that manifests itself in both animal instinct and in the human disposition to love the mother from babyhood, let us not be less intelligent than children nor more stupid than the wild animals! Don't let us stand before the God who created us like loveless strangers! Even if we haven't learned what he is from his goodness, yet we should love him above all else simply because we have been created by him, and hold fast to the remembrance of him as children do to the remembrance of their mother.

Source: Daily Gospel