READING OF THE DAY First reading from the Book of Deuteronomy Dt 6:2-6
Moses spoke to the people, saying: "Fear the LORD, your God, and keep, throughout the days of your lives, all his statutes and commandments which I enjoin on you, and thus have long life. Hear then, Israel, and be careful to observe them, that you may grow and prosper the more, in keeping with the promise of the LORD, the God of your fathers, to give you a land flowing with milk and honey.
"Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone! Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. Take to heart these words which I enjoin on you today."
Psalms, 18
" I love you, Yahweh, my strength Yahweh is my rock and my fortress, my deliverer is my God. I take refuge in him, my rock, my shield, my saving strength, my stronghold, my place of refuge. I call to Yahweh who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my foes. Life to Yahweh! Blessed be my rock! Exalted be the God of my salvation, "He saves his king time after time, displays his faithful love for his anointed, for David and his heirs for ever."
Second reading from the Letter of St. Paul to the Hebrews Heb 7:23-28
Brothers and sisters: The levitical priests were many because they were prevented by death from remaining in office, but Jesus, because he remains forever, has a priesthood that does not pass away. Therefore, he is always able to save those who approach God through him, since he lives forever to make intercession for them.
It was fitting that we should have such a high priest: holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, higher than the heavens. He has no need, as did the high priests, to offer sacrifice day after day, first for his own sins and then for those of the people; he did that once for all when he offered himself. For the law appoints men subject to weakness to be high priests, but the word of the oath, which was taken after the law, appoints a son, who has been made perfect forever.
From the GOSPEL according to Mark 12:28b-34
One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked him, "Which is the first of all the commandments?" Jesus replied, "The first is this: 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. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these." The scribe said to him, "Well said, teacher. You are right in saying, 'He is One and there is no other than he.' And 'to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself' is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices." And when Jesus saw that he answered with understanding, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." And no one dared to ask him any more questions.
WORDS OF THE HOLY FATHER
In choosing these two Words addressed by God to his people and by putting them together, Jesus taught once and for all that love for God and love for neighbour are inseparable; moreover, they sustain one another. Even if set in a sequence, they are two sides of a single coin: experienced together they are a believer’s strength! Therefore, to love God means to invest our energies each day to be his assistants in the unmitigated service of our neighbour, in trying to forgive without limitations, and in cultivating relationships of communion and fraternity. (Angelus – Sunday, 4 November 2018)
FAUSTI - "Listen, Israel!" Jesus recalls the "Shema" (Dt 6:4) to be recited in the morning and evening prayer. In fact, it is possible to love Him only to the extent that we know His Love for us, incredible for those who do not listen to the Word that reveals Him: "You will love the Lord your God" He created and saved us, showing Himself to be our only Lord and Lord. " From whole your heart, your life, your mind, your strength" If He hadn' commanded us, we would never have dared. A God who asks: "Listen, please! Love me, because I'm in love with you... I command you to love me, because you don't believe me..." Love either finds or makes you similar. His love for me has made him man, my love for Him makes me God. To love means to praise, to reverence, to serve. To praise, contrary to envy, is to rejoice in the good of the beloved; to reverence is to respect Him and to take Him into account for fear of losing Him; to serve is to make available to Him what one has, what one does and what one is. Let us learn what love is from the Lord Himself, who has rejoiced in our good more than in His, who has esteemed us more than Himself, and who has placed His Life at our service. This command makes us understand who He is, He is to be loved, because He is Love. If to love is the purpose for which we are created, our sin or failure is not to be able to do so. God accepts not to be loved, but not to be second. It would not be God. He is the only pole, on the basis of which I can choose every one of mine; he is the Absolute that I do not want to lose, the first and only one, my Lord. No one else desires except Him, who alone satisfies my hunger. He is the Lord of what I am and of what I do worth more than my life, which I put at His service, as He did with me. Love is intelligent: it loves to know in order to love more. Intelligence is like the eye of the heart. You cannot love what you do not see, just as you cannot but try to see who you love! All that I have, personal qualities and external means, is to use everything in order to love Him.Loving Him in this way, I fully realize myself, becoming similar to Him, who is all and only Love in and for me. The second is this: "You will love your neighbor as yourself" Love for man is not an alternative to love for God. It flows like water from the spring. That is why it is second. Not because it is secondary, but because all love comes and goes from a high place. Whoever places it as first exchanges the tap for the spring. And, if it detaches itself from the spring, it remains without water. Our neighbour is not to be loved in an absolute way, it would be to make him a God, while he is a man. He is loaded with a burden that he cannot bear, and he is destroyed. Usually you throw it away, with disappointment and hatred, when you realize that it is limited. The other I must love him as myself, that is, as one who realizes himself by loving God. So I love him in truth only if I help him become himself, reaching the finality for which he was created, which is precisely that of loving God above all else. Every man is a free person precisely because he is in direct and unique relationship with God. For this reason, possessive love - direct and exclusive - enslaves and kills, while true love frees and gives life. "Another commandment is no greater than these". "Love is the full fulfillment of the law" (Rom 13:10). Every other command has its meaning in this, and is an expression of it. What does not come from love, and does not lead to it, is not the Will of God.
BENEDICT XVI ANGELUS Saint Peter's Square Sunday, 4 November 2012
This Sunday’s Gospel (Mk 12:28-34) offers us Jesus’ teaching on the greatest commandment, the commandment of love, which is two-fold: love of God and love of neighbour. The Saints, who we have recently celebrated together in a single solemn Feast are precisely those who, trusting in God’s grace, tried to live according to this fundamental law. In fact, those who live a profound relationship with God, just as a child becomes capable of loving, starting from a good relationship with his mother and father, may put the commandment of love fully into practice. St John of Avila, who I recently proclaimed a Doctor of the Church, writes at the beginning of his Treatise on the Love of God: “the cause”, he says, “that mostly pushes our hearts to love of God is considering deeply the love that He had for us.... This, beyond any benefit, pushes the heart to love; because he who gives something of benefit to another, gives him something he possesses; but he who loves, gives himself with everything he has, until he has nothing left to give” (n. 1). Before being a command — love is not a command — it is a gift, a reality that God allows us to know and experience, so that, like a seed, it can also germinate within us and develop throughout our life.
If the love of God has planted deep roots in a person, then he is able to love even those who do not deserve it, as God does us. Fathers and mothers do not love their children only when they deserve love; they always love them, though of course, they make them understand when they are wrong. We learn from God to seek only what is good and never what is evil. We learn to look at each other not only with our eyes, but with the eyes of God, which is the gaze of Jesus Christ. A gaze that begins in the heart and does not stop at the surface, that goes beyond appearances and manages to capture the deepest aspirations of the other: waiting to be heard, for caring attention, in a word: love. But the opposite is also true: that by opening myself to another, just as he or she is, by reaching out, by making myself available, I am also opening myself to know God, to feel that he is there and is good. Love of God and love of neighbour are inseparable and are mutually related. Jesus did not invent one or the other but revealed that they are essentially a single commandment and did so not only through the Word, but especially with his testimony: the person of Jesus and his whole Mystery embody the unity of love of God and neighbour, like the two arms of the Cross, vertical and horizontal. In the Eucharist he gives us this two-fold love, giving himself, because, nourished by this Bread, we love one another as he has loved us.
Dear friends, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, we pray that every Christian may know how to show his/her faith in the one true God with a clear witness to love of neighbour.
ANGELUS Saint Peter's Square Sunday, 4 November 2018
At the heart of this Sunday’s Gospel passage (cf. Mk 12:28b-34), there is the commandment of love: love of God and love of neighbour. A scribe asks Jesus: “Which commandment is the first of all?” (v. 28). He responds by quoting the profession of faith with which every Israelite opens and closes his day, and begins with the words “Hear O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord” (Deut 6:4). In this manner Israel safeguards its faith in the fundamental reality of its whole creed: only one Lord exists and that Lord is ‘ours’ in the sense that he is bound to us by an indissoluble pact; he loved us, loves us, and will love us for ever. It is from this source, this love of God, that the twofold commandment comes to us: “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.... You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Mk 12:30-31).
In choosing these two Words addressed by God to his people and by putting them together, Jesus taught once and for all that love for God and love for neighbour are inseparable; moreover, they sustain one another. Even if set in a sequence, they are two sides of a single coin: experienced together they are a believer’s strength! To love God is to live of him and for him, for what he is and for what he does. Our God is unmitigated giving; he is unlimited forgiveness; he is a relationship that promotes and fosters. Therefore, to love God means to invest our energies each day to be his assistants in the unmitigated service of our neighbour, in trying to forgive without limitations, and in cultivating relationships of communion and fraternity.
Mark the Evangelist does not bother to specify who the neighbour is, because a neighbour is a person whom I meet on the journey, in my days. It is not a matter of pre-selecting my neighbour: this is not Christian. I think my neighbour is the one I have chosen ahead of time: no, this is not Christian, it is pagan; but it is about having eyes to see and a heart to want what is good for him or her. If we practice seeing with Jesus’ gaze, we will always be listening and be close to those in need. Of course our neighbour’s needs require effective responses, but even beforehand they require sharing. With one look we can say that the hungry need not just a bowl of soup, but also a smile, to be listened to and also a prayer, perhaps said together. Today’s Gospel passage invites us all to be projected not only toward the needs of our poorest brothers and sisters, but above all to be attentive to their need for fraternal closeness, for a meaning to life, and for tenderness. This challenges our Christian communities: it means avoiding the risk of being communities that have many initiatives but few relationships; the risk of being community ‘service stations’ but with little company, in the full and Christian sense of this term.
God, who is love, created us to love and so that we can love others while remaining united with him. It would be misleading to claim to love our neighbour without loving God; and it would also be deceptive to claim to love God without loving our neighbour. The two dimensions of love, for God and for neighbour, in their unity characterize the disciple of Christ. May the Virgin Mary help us to welcome and bear witness in everyday life to this luminous lesson.
READING OF THE DAY
RispondiEliminaFirst reading from the Book of Deuteronomy
Dt 6:2-6
Moses spoke to the people, saying:
"Fear the LORD, your God,
and keep, throughout the days of your lives,
all his statutes and commandments which I enjoin on you,
and thus have long life.
Hear then, Israel, and be careful to observe them,
that you may grow and prosper the more,
in keeping with the promise of the LORD, the God of your fathers,
to give you a land flowing with milk and honey.
"Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone!
Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God,
with all your heart,
and with all your soul,
and with all your strength.
Take to heart these words which I enjoin on you today."
Psalms, 18
" I love you, Yahweh, my strength
Yahweh is my rock and my fortress, my deliverer is my God.
I take refuge in him, my rock, my shield, my saving strength,
my stronghold, my place of refuge.
I call to Yahweh who is worthy of praise,
and I am saved from my foes.
Life to Yahweh! Blessed be my rock!
Exalted be the God of my salvation,
"He saves his king time after time,
displays his faithful love for his anointed,
for David and his heirs for ever."
Second reading from the Letter of St. Paul to the Hebrews
Heb 7:23-28
Brothers and sisters:
The levitical priests were many
because they were prevented by death from remaining in office,
but Jesus, because he remains forever,
has a priesthood that does not pass away.
Therefore, he is always able to save those who approach God through him,
since he lives forever to make intercession for them.
It was fitting that we should have such a high priest:
holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners,
higher than the heavens.
He has no need, as did the high priests,
to offer sacrifice day after day,
first for his own sins and then for those of the people;
he did that once for all when he offered himself.
For the law appoints men subject to weakness to be high priests,
but the word of the oath, which was taken after the law,
appoints a son,
who has been made perfect forever.
From the GOSPEL
according to Mark 12:28b-34
One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked him,
"Which is the first of all the commandments?"
Jesus replied, "The first is this:
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.
The second is this:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
There is no other commandment greater than these."
The scribe said to him, "Well said, teacher.
You are right in saying,
'He is One and there is no other than he.'
And 'to love him with all your heart,
with all your understanding,
with all your strength,
and to love your neighbor as yourself'
is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."
And when Jesus saw that he answered with understanding,
he said to him,
"You are not far from the kingdom of God."
And no one dared to ask him any more questions.
WORDS OF THE HOLY FATHER
In choosing these two Words addressed by God to his people and by putting them together, Jesus taught once and for all that love for God and love for neighbour are inseparable; moreover, they sustain one another. Even if set in a sequence, they are two sides of a single coin: experienced together they are a believer’s strength! Therefore, to love God means to invest our energies each day to be his assistants in the unmitigated service of our neighbour, in trying to forgive without limitations, and in cultivating relationships of communion and fraternity. (Angelus – Sunday, 4 November 2018)
FAUSTI - "Listen, Israel!" Jesus recalls the "Shema" (Dt 6:4) to be recited in the morning and evening prayer. In fact, it is possible to love Him only to the extent that we know His Love for us, incredible for those who do not listen to the Word that reveals Him: "You will love the Lord your God" He created and saved us, showing Himself to be our only Lord and Lord.
RispondiElimina" From whole your heart, your life, your mind, your strength"
If He hadn' commanded us, we would never have dared. A God who asks: "Listen, please! Love me, because I'm in love with you... I command you to love me, because you don't believe me..." Love either finds or makes you similar. His love for me has made him man, my love for Him makes me God. To love means to praise, to reverence, to serve.
To praise, contrary to envy, is to rejoice in the good of the beloved; to reverence is to respect Him and to take Him into account for fear of losing Him; to serve is to make available to Him what one has, what one does and what one is.
Let us learn what love is from the Lord Himself, who has rejoiced in our good more than in His, who has esteemed us more than Himself, and who has placed His Life at our service.
This command makes us understand who He is, He is to be loved, because He is Love.
If to love is the purpose for which we are created, our sin or failure is not to be able to do so.
God accepts not to be loved, but not to be second. It would not be God.
He is the only pole, on the basis of which I can choose every one of mine; he is the Absolute that I do not want to lose, the first and only one, my Lord.
No one else desires except Him, who alone satisfies my hunger.
He is the Lord of what I am and of what I do worth more than my life, which I put at His service, as He did with me.
Love is intelligent: it loves to know in order to love more. Intelligence is like the eye of the heart.
You cannot love what you do not see, just as you cannot but try to see who you love!
All that I have, personal qualities and external means, is to use everything in order to love Him.Loving Him in this way, I fully realize myself, becoming similar to Him, who is all and only Love in and for me.
The second is this: "You will love your neighbor as yourself" Love for man is not an alternative to love for God. It flows like water from the spring.
That is why it is second. Not because it is secondary, but because all love comes and goes from a high place.
Whoever places it as first exchanges the tap for the spring. And, if it detaches itself from the spring, it remains without water.
Our neighbour is not to be loved in an absolute way, it would be to make him a God, while he is a man.
He is loaded with a burden that he cannot bear, and he is destroyed. Usually you throw it away, with disappointment and hatred, when you realize that it is limited.
The other I must love him as myself, that is, as one who realizes himself by loving God.
So I love him in truth only if I help him become himself, reaching the finality for which he was created, which is precisely that of loving God above all else.
Every man is a free person precisely because he is in direct and unique relationship with God.
For this reason, possessive love - direct and exclusive - enslaves and kills, while true love frees and gives life.
"Another commandment is no greater than these". "Love is the full fulfillment of the law" (Rom 13:10). Every other command has its meaning in this, and is an expression of it.
What does not come from love, and does not lead to it, is not the Will of God.
BENEDICT XVI
RispondiEliminaANGELUS Saint Peter's Square
Sunday, 4 November 2012
This Sunday’s Gospel (Mk 12:28-34) offers us Jesus’ teaching on the greatest commandment, the commandment of love, which is two-fold: love of God and love of neighbour. The Saints, who we have recently celebrated together in a single solemn Feast are precisely those who, trusting in God’s grace, tried to live according to this fundamental law. In fact, those who live a profound relationship with God, just as a child becomes capable of loving, starting from a good relationship with his mother and father, may put the commandment of love fully into practice. St John of Avila, who I recently proclaimed a Doctor of the Church, writes at the beginning of his Treatise on the Love of God: “the cause”, he says, “that mostly pushes our hearts to love of God is considering deeply the love that He had for us.... This, beyond any benefit, pushes the heart to love; because he who gives something of benefit to another, gives him something he possesses; but he who loves, gives himself with everything he has, until he has nothing left to give” (n. 1). Before being a command — love is not a command — it is a gift, a reality that God allows us to know and experience, so that, like a seed, it can also germinate within us and develop throughout our life.
If the love of God has planted deep roots in a person, then he is able to love even those who do not deserve it, as God does us. Fathers and mothers do not love their children only when they deserve love; they always love them, though of course, they make them understand when they are wrong. We learn from God to seek only what is good and never what is evil. We learn to look at each other not only with our eyes, but with the eyes of God, which is the gaze of Jesus Christ. A gaze that begins in the heart and does not stop at the surface, that goes beyond appearances and manages to capture the deepest aspirations of the other: waiting to be heard, for caring attention, in a word: love. But the opposite is also true: that by opening myself to another, just as he or she is, by reaching out, by making myself available, I am also opening myself to know God, to feel that he is there and is good. Love of God and love of neighbour are inseparable and are mutually related. Jesus did not invent one or the other but revealed that they are essentially a single commandment and did so not only through the Word, but especially with his testimony: the person of Jesus and his whole Mystery embody the unity of love of God and neighbour, like the two arms of the Cross, vertical and horizontal. In the Eucharist he gives us this two-fold love, giving himself, because, nourished by this Bread, we love one another as he has loved us.
Dear friends, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, we pray that every Christian may know how to show his/her faith in the one true God with a clear witness to love of neighbour.
POPE FRANCIS
RispondiEliminaANGELUS
Saint Peter's Square
Sunday, 4 November 2018
At the heart of this Sunday’s Gospel passage (cf. Mk 12:28b-34), there is the commandment of love: love of God and love of neighbour. A scribe asks Jesus: “Which commandment is the first of all?” (v. 28). He responds by quoting the profession of faith with which every Israelite opens and closes his day, and begins with the words “Hear O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord” (Deut 6:4). In this manner Israel safeguards its faith in the fundamental reality of its whole creed: only one Lord exists and that Lord is ‘ours’ in the sense that he is bound to us by an indissoluble pact; he loved us, loves us, and will love us for ever. It is from this source, this love of God, that the twofold commandment comes to us: “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.... You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Mk 12:30-31).
In choosing these two Words addressed by God to his people and by putting them together, Jesus taught once and for all that love for God and love for neighbour are inseparable; moreover, they sustain one another. Even if set in a sequence, they are two sides of a single coin: experienced together they are a believer’s strength! To love God is to live of him and for him, for what he is and for what he does. Our God is unmitigated giving; he is unlimited forgiveness; he is a relationship that promotes and fosters. Therefore, to love God means to invest our energies each day to be his assistants in the unmitigated service of our neighbour, in trying to forgive without limitations, and in cultivating relationships of communion and fraternity.
Mark the Evangelist does not bother to specify who the neighbour is, because a neighbour is a person whom I meet on the journey, in my days. It is not a matter of pre-selecting my neighbour: this is not Christian. I think my neighbour is the one I have chosen ahead of time: no, this is not Christian, it is pagan; but it is about having eyes to see and a heart to want what is good for him or her. If we practice seeing with Jesus’ gaze, we will always be listening and be close to those in need. Of course our neighbour’s needs require effective responses, but even beforehand they require sharing. With one look we can say that the hungry need not just a bowl of soup, but also a smile, to be listened to and also a prayer, perhaps said together. Today’s Gospel passage invites us all to be projected not only toward the needs of our poorest brothers and sisters, but above all to be attentive to their need for fraternal closeness, for a meaning to life, and for tenderness. This challenges our Christian communities: it means avoiding the risk of being communities that have many initiatives but few relationships; the risk of being community ‘service stations’ but with little company, in the full and Christian sense of this term.
God, who is love, created us to love and so that we can love others while remaining united with him. It would be misleading to claim to love our neighbour without loving God; and it would also be deceptive to claim to love God without loving our neighbour. The two dimensions of love, for God and for neighbour, in their unity characterize the disciple of Christ. May the Virgin Mary help us to welcome and bear witness in everyday life to this luminous lesson.