BCL Newsletter Week 44

Jim Butler,  Grove Terrace

Books have been placed in each Church for remembrance

of those who died during the Covid 19 times.

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The Gospel this Sunday gives us a lesson on the greatest commandment of love. A scribe approached Jesus with a question: “Which is the first of all the commandments?” Jesus answered this academic question by quoting right away Deuteronomy 6:4-5: “Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” This is what the Jews call the “Shema”, a prayer that every faithful Jew would recite twice every day, summarizing the essentials of Jewish faith and way of life. Then he immediately joins a commandment from Leviticus 19:18: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”

This teaching is the most central core of the Gospel because it is about love. The Apostle St. John gives the answer why this is so: “because God is love.” (1Jn 4:8) Hence, he rightly concludes that the only way to know God is to love: “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” St. Albert the Great said, “It is by the path of love, which is charity, that God draws near to man, and man to God. But where charity is not found, God cannot dwell. If, then, we possess charity, we possess God, for ‘God is Charity’”.

In his teaching, Jesus made it very clear that the first and most important commandment is love of God. Love of neighbour comes second only. This is a very important point to consider. Nowadays, there is a flagrant attempt by secular societies to relegate God to the side. Pope Benedict XVI made this observation: “The crisis we are living through,” he said, “carries with it signs of the exclusion of God from people’s lives, a general indifference to the Christian faith, and even the intention of marginalizing it from public life.”(May 30, 2011).

The life of every Christian can be illustrated by the image of the cross. The cross has vertical and horizontal beams. But for it to stand, the vertical beam has first to be put in place. Only then can the horizontal beam be attached to it. The vertical beam can stand on itself without the horizontal beam, but the cross is not complete. On the other hand, the horizontal beam will be lying useless on the ground without the vertical beam.

The same is true with every Christian. The two dimensions must be present in order to have a complete and meaningful Christian life. The vertical dimension is the love of God, and the horizontal dimension is the love of neighbour. But which comes first? As Jesus clearly pointed out, the vertical dimension must come first. The love of God is most important – “with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.”