Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
First Reading: Exodus 22:20-26
Second Reading: 1 Thessalonians 1:5-10
Gospel: Matthew 22: 34-40
The entrance antiphon today reminds us how to be joyful. It says, “let hearts rejoice who search for the Lord…” when we don’t seek the Lord, we don’t find real happiness. Sadness springs from love of self, the pursuit of personal comfort and the neglect of things of God and our fellow men. The Gospel for today’s mass is an invitation to joy because it is an invitation to love. The law of love is also the law of joy. Sadness does not come from suffering itself, but from the failure to look upon Jesus out of love of self. What we need to be happy is a heart full of love, not wealth. Sadness is the fruit of self-love and absence of love.
Isidor Isaac Rabi, a Nobel Prize winner in Physics, and one of the developers of the atomic bomb, was once asked how he became a scientist. Rabi replied, “everyday after school, my mother would ask me, ‘did you ask a good question today?” His mother was not so much interested in what he had learnt but whether he asked a good question. Asking good questions said Rabi made him become a scientist. In order to ask good questions, you need to have noble motives behind the question. You have to want to know the truth. The pharisees, by contrast already had the answers to their questions or at least thought they had it. their only intention was to entrap Jesus and humiliate Him. Matthew tells us that the question was put to Him to test Him.
There are about 613 laws in the Old Testament. What the lawyer was basically asking Jesus is, which of these is the greatest commandment? Or rather which one is the most important. Jesus could have legitimately answered the man from the decalogue, the ten commandments in Exodus 20. He could have said it is the first commandment – “I am the Lord your God; you shall have no other God before me” – the prohibition against idolatry. But Jesus does not do that. He does not go to the negative prohibitions but goes to the positive law of Moses in the Book of Deuteronomy 6: 4-6. This passage is called in Jewish tradition, the Shema. The Hebrew word Shema means ‘hear’ or ‘listen.’ So, this passage is called the Shema from its first word.
Listen O, Israel, the Lord, Our God is One Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength. This was for the Jews a kind of a creed. Faithful Jews practically recite it several times each day; when they wake up in the morning, when they go about, and in the evening. Each one was required to recite it a minimum of three times each day – morning, noon and evening. Jesus, Mary and Joseph would have recited it several times each day.
To answer the lawyer’s question, Jesus is doing the unexpected, he does not go to the ten commandments which they would have expected Him to do, but points to the most well-known scripture passage by any Jew in the first century, during His time. The greatest commandment says you have to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your might. Heart here will mean with your will; soul is the image of your life and might will include your intellect. It means that you will love God with all that you have and are.
Unfortunately, the greatest and most important commandment is the one that is most despised. There are few who fulfil it. The greater part of humanity loves their relations, friends and even animals but do not love God. We are attracted to love by various motives according to our fancy and disposition. Some are affected by beauty, some by meekness, some by straightforwardness, some by mercy, intelligence, kindness or nobility of character that we cannot resist. Sometimes we are attracted by virtues which we lack. Yet no creature is perfect. God alone has the fullness of all these. Think about the heart of Jesus, the seat of all virtues, the source of all blessings, the place of refuge for all holy souls and full of love. How much more should we love God?
Who is more amiable? God is so amiable that barely seeing and loving Him in heaven, the saints feel a joy which makes them perfectly happy and content for all eternity. Saint Alphonsus Liguori said, the greatest of the torments of the damned arises from knowing that this God is so amiable but they cannot love Him. Nobody can love you more than God. He loved us so tenderly even when we were still sinners and gave His life for us. Contemplating God’s love for us, challenges us to purge ourselves of every attachment that can encumber our hearts.
It becomes sad that this all loving and perfect God will be so little loved my men. Who can be more noble, more magnificent, more powerful, more beautiful, more merciful, more amiable or loving than God? Isaiah 40:15 says, “the nations are like a drop on the brim of the bucket or like dust on the scales before Him. He possesses all the riches of heaven and earth. St Augustine says, that God has a greater capacity to do good to us, that we have to receive it.
In 1 Corinthians 13: 1-3 St. Paul says we are nothing without love. It doesn’t matter if you speak in every human and angelic tongue, have the gift of prophecy and give away everything to the poor. Love is the mother of all virtues. That is why St. Augustine says, “love God and do what you want. He knows that he who loves God, can only do what is good.
The first fruit of love is joy. This is why love prevents us from feeling the pains of this life. St. Bonaventure says, the love of God is like honey. It sweetens the bitter. Nothing is better for a soul that loves God, than to suffer for Him. He knows that by cheerfully embracing suffering, he pleases God.
This is the greatest and the first of the commandments
To love God, we have to love what He loves and hate what he hates – sin – whether mortal or venial. In John 14: 23, Jesus says, “if you love me, keep my commandments. Love of God has to become the greatest motivation of our lives. This is because whatever is not done for the love of God misses the mark and is lost. The first mark of love is to endeavor not to give the slightest displeasure to the beloved. You cannot be said to love God with all your heart when you are not afraid to commit even a deliberate venial sin. We must have a great desire to love God. It is He who fills the hungry with good things and said blessed are those who hunger for they shall be satisfied.
The second, which is inseparable from the first, says we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. We are to love them because God loves them. Loving our neighbor as we love ourselves requires us treating them the way we want to be treated. We all want to feel important, loved and respected. We want to be forgiven when we sin. Treat others the same way. We know by experience that love is the most difficult task because it makes serious demands on us. We know too, that we are often afraid to love because to love is to open oneself to being hurt. Have you been hurt severally because you loved? Has your love been rejected? God knew that men will reject Him and continue to hurt him but he was not discouraged. He sent His son to reveal to us how much he loves us, how to love Him and our neighbor. Jesus did not only tell us to love the Father, in His life he showed us how to love the Father – by obeying Him, by doing the will of the Father even if it leads to our death.
Happy Sunday
Fr. Chidi Onwuka MSSCC