Gospel: Matthew
22:34-40
When the
Pharisees heard that Jesus 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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Reflection:
A middle
aged rich woman was always present in the church for worship. It was her way of
showing people how she lived the commandment of loving God with all our Heart,
Soul and Mind. Near the house where she lived is a community of poor people.
While the
pious lady was passing by the leader of the poor community saw her and he
remembered her as the lady who was always at church. So he said to himself: We
will ask help from this prayerful woman for I know that she will not fail us.
He
approached her and asked for her help in whatever way possible. But the
supposedly pious and prayerful lady said no and she even had the temerity to
scold the poor man. Obviously the woman was not true to her self- proclamation
that she loves God. And obviously her love for God was a charade for how can
she loved God when she ignores the poor who ask for her help.
In our
gospel for this Sunday Jesus gives us the two greatest commandments: Our love
for God and our love for our neighbor. We cannot separate our love for God with
our love for our neighbors. These two greatest commandments are inseparable one
cannot exist without the other one.
If we
profess to love God with our worship; God wants this love for Him to cascade to
our poor neighbor. This is always the action that God wants us to do: To love
Him and our neighbor.
If we say
that we love God yet we don’t love our neighbors because they incessantly
disturb us. If we say that we love God yet we hate those who hurt us. Then our
love for God is empty and baseless. –Marino J. Dasmarinas
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