31st Sunday 2024
Deuteronomy 6:2-6; Hebrews 7:23-28; Mark 12:28-34
“Shema Yisrael—Listen Israel!”: with those words devout Jews fix their attention on God in their daily prayer, both morning and evening. They continue with the rest of Moses’ command, declaring the oneness of God, and committing themselves to loving God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength.
It is no surprise that Jesus, Himself a devout Jew, doesn’t hesitate before reciting the Shema in reply to the scribe’s question. That must have relieved the scribe’s mind, as he tries to establish what Jesus is about. At least this new prophet keeps the basic faith of the ancestors.
Would Jesus’ declaration that the Second Commandment entails loving one’s neighbour as oneself have surprised His listeners? It isn’t the Second Commandment of the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments) though it occurs elsewhere in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. In Luke’s account of this episode, which leads into the parable of the Good Samaritan, the Lawyer, a rather more hostile character than Mark’s scribe, is already familiar with the linking of the two Commandments, but Luke may have done this to help his narrative along.
The scribe of today’s Gospel seems surprised as well as delighted when Our Lord links the two. Enthusiastically, he endorses Jesus’ words, and even adds his own postscript, to the effect that these Commandments are far more important than religious observances, a viewpoint which would have put him at odds with many of his contemporaries, as well as with the modern day Pharisees who want the Church to focus on rules and regulations above all other considerations.
What though do these two Commandments mean, which form the basis of all Jesus’ teaching? Modern day society would claim, by and large, to endorse the Second of them whilst jettisoning the First, but Jesus is insistent on the correct order. Love of God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength comes before all else.
In what does the love of God consist? I remember a Sixth Former at Our Lady’s, Lancaster, many years ago suggesting “Loving God is different from loving people, isn’t it?” Is it? I would say so. There isn’t the physical element for one thing: what about the emotional aspect?
There are people who do become emotional when they reflect on God, on His glory, His love, His generosity, but especially on His self-sacrifice in the person of Jesus, as God took on our human flesh. Perhaps all of us may become emotional at times, as we kneel before the tabernacle, or contemplate the crucified Jesus, or welcome Him into ourselves in Holy Communion. Like the Emmaus disciples, our hearts may “burn within us” as He opens the Scriptures for us.
I would suggest, however, that these emotional uplifts are rare; for most of us, most of the time, our religious experience may verge on non-experience, on the humdrum, even on a struggle against tedium, on routine and even boredom rather than on emotional highs. There is a saying “After the ecstasy, go and do the laundry”; in other words, if you do have such an experience, remember that it cannot last, that it isn’t the heart or the essence of our life in God.
What then is that essence? What do we mean by loving God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength? The basis, I think, is faithfulness. It is trying to understand what God wants of us, and attempting to live that to the full. St. Francis de Sales urges us to “seek the God of consolations, rather than the consolations of God”, while St. Alphonsus prays “all that I ask and desire is thy holy love, final perseverance, and the perfect fulfilment of thy will”.
It demands prayer, and openness in our prayer: not a monologue on our part, but a willingness to listen. In that listening, we won’t hear a voice, but gradually we may become more aware of God’s presence, of what He is asking of us in the here and now.
There is another question: “How do we love our neighbour as ourselves?” That is usually interpreted as “loving other people as much as we love ourselves”. There may be something shaky in that: many of us, if we are honest, don’t love ourselves very much. To me it seems rather to suggest “loving others AS BEING OURSELVES”, to see them as us, to identify with them. We are brought back, as so often, to that word “compassion—suffering with”, living in the other person’s skin.
Right then! Those are my thoughts on the two greatest Commandments. If anyone has any better ideas, let me know.
