Reflection for Friday August 21 Memorial of Saint Pius X, Pope: Matthew 22:34-40

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:

The story is told of a middle-aged, wealthy woman who was always present in church for worship. She considered this her way of showing others that she lived the commandment of loving God with all her heart, soul, and mind. Near the house where she lived was a community of poor people.

One day, as the pious woman was passing by, the leader of the poor community saw her and remembered her as the woman who was always in church. So he said to himself, “I will ask this prayerful woman for help, for I know that she will not fail me.”

He approached her and asked for her help in whatever way she could. But the supposedly pious and prayerful woman said no. She even had the temerity to scold the poor man.

Obviously, the woman was not true to her self-proclaimed love for God. Her love for God was merely a charade. For how can we claim to love God when we ignore the poor and needy who come to us asking for our help?

In the Gospel, Jesus gives us the two greatest commandments: to love God and to love our neighbor. These two commandments are inseparable. We cannot truly love God while closing our hearts to our brothers and sisters who are in need. Our love for God must always find expression in the way we love, serve, forgive, and care for others.

Sometimes, we may find it easy to worship God, to pray, to attend Mass, and to speak about our faith. But the real test of our love for God is often found outside the church—in the people whom we encounter every day, especially those who are poor, struggling, forgotten, or in need of our compassion.

If we profess our love for God through our worship, God desires that this love overflow into the lives of our neighbors. Our prayers should lead us to compassion. Our worship should lead us to service. Our faith should lead us to forgiveness. And our love for God should open our hearts to those whom He places in our path.

It is possible for us to be present in church yet absent from the needs of our neighbors. We can lift our hands in worship yet fail to extend them to someone who needs our help. We can speak beautifully about loving God yet harbor resentment, refuse to forgive, or become irritated by those who continually disturb our peace.

When this happens, perhaps the Lord is gently reminding us that our worship must not end when we leave the church. True worship continues when we encounter the hungry, the poor, the lonely, the hurting, the inconvenient, and even those whom we find difficult to love.

Let us therefore ask the Holy Spirit to transform our love for God into concrete acts of love for one another. May our prayers become compassion, our faith become service, and our worship become a life offered for others. May we never allow our love for God to remain only on our lips or within the walls of our churches. May it overflow from our hearts into the lives of the people around us.

For in the end, the question is not simply whether we worship God, but whether our worship has changed the way we love.

Can the people around us see, through the way we love, forgive, serve, and care for them, that we truly love God—or is Jesus inviting us today to open our hearts wider and let our love for Him overflow into the lives of those who need us most?—Marino J. Dasmarinas