In today’s liturgy, the Gospel presents a scribe who approaches Jesus and asks him: “Which commandment is the first of all?” (Mk 12:28). Jesus responds by citing Scripture and stating that the first commandment is to love God; from this one then derives the second, as a natural consequence: to love one’s neighbour as oneself (cf. vv. 29-31). Hearing this response, the scribe not only recognises that he is right, but in doing so, in recognising that he is right, he repeats the same words Jesus had said: “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that… to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbour as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices” (vv. 32-33).
We can ask ourselves, in giving his assent, why did that scribe feel the need to repeat Jesus’ same words? This repetition seems to be more surprising if we think that this is the Gospel of Mark, who has a very concise style. So, what could this repetition mean? This repetition is a teaching for all of us who are listening. For the Word of the Lord cannot be received as any other type of news. The Word of the Lord should be repeated, made one’s own, safeguarded. The monastic tradition of the monks, uses an audacious but very concrete term. It goes like this: the Word of God must be “ruminated”. “To ruminate” the Word of God. We could say that it is so nutritious that it must reach every aspect of life: to involve, as Jesus says today, the entire heart, the entire soul, the entire mind, all of our strength (cf. v. 30). The Word of the Lord must resound, echo and re-echo within us. When there is this interior echo that repeats itself, it means that the Lord dwells in the heart. And he says to us, just as he did to that good scribe in the Gospel: “You are not far from the kingdom of God” (v. 34).
Dear brothers and sisters, the Lord does not seek skilled commentators of the Scriptures, as much as he seeks docile hearts that, welcoming his Word, allow themselves to be changed within. This is why it is so important to be familiar with the Gospel, to always have it at hand — even a small-sized Gospel in our pockets, in our purses to read and reread, to be passionate about it. When we do this, Jesus, the Word of the Father, enters into our hearts, he becomes intimate with us and we bear fruit in Him. Let us take for example today’s Gospel: it is not enough to read it and understand that we should love God and our neighbour. It is necessary that this commandment, which is the “great commandment”, resound in us, that it be assimilated, that it become the voice of our conscience. This way, it does not remain a dead letter, in the drawer of the heart, because the Holy Spirit makes the seed of that Word germinate in us. And the Word of God works, it is always in motion, it is living and active (cf. Heb 4:12). So each one of us can become a living, different and original “translation”, not a repetition but a living, different and original “translation” of the one Word of love that God gives us. This is what we see in the lives of the Saints for example. None of them is the same as another. They are all different, but with the same Word of God.
-->Today, therefore, let us take the example of this scribe. Let us repeat Jesus’ words, making them resound in us: “To love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind and with all our strength and my neighbour as myself”. And let us ask ourselves: does this commandment truly orient my life? Does this commandment resonate in my daily life? It would be good this evening, before going to sleep, to make an examination of conscience on this Word, to see if we have loved the Lord today and if we have done a little good to those we happened to meet. May every encounter bring about a little bit of good, a little bit of love that comes from this Word. May the Virgin Mary, in whom the Word of God was made flesh, teach us to welcome the living word of the Gospel in our hearts.
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.
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.
POPE FRANCIS
RispondiEliminaANGELUS 31 October 2021
Dear brothers and sisters, buongiorno!
In today’s liturgy, the Gospel presents a scribe who approaches Jesus and asks him: “Which commandment is the first of all?” (Mk 12:28). Jesus responds by citing Scripture and stating that the first commandment is to love God; from this one then derives the second, as a natural consequence: to love one’s neighbour as oneself (cf. vv. 29-31). Hearing this response, the scribe not only recognises that he is right, but in doing so, in recognising that he is right, he repeats the same words Jesus had said: “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that… to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbour as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices” (vv. 32-33).
We can ask ourselves, in giving his assent, why did that scribe feel the need to repeat Jesus’ same words? This repetition seems to be more surprising if we think that this is the Gospel of Mark, who has a very concise style. So, what could this repetition mean? This repetition is a teaching for all of us who are listening. For the Word of the Lord cannot be received as any other type of news. The Word of the Lord should be repeated, made one’s own, safeguarded. The monastic tradition of the monks, uses an audacious but very concrete term. It goes like this: the Word of God must be “ruminated”. “To ruminate” the Word of God. We could say that it is so nutritious that it must reach every aspect of life: to involve, as Jesus says today, the entire heart, the entire soul, the entire mind, all of our strength (cf. v. 30). The Word of the Lord must resound, echo and re-echo within us. When there is this interior echo that repeats itself, it means that the Lord dwells in the heart. And he says to us, just as he did to that good scribe in the Gospel: “You are not far from the kingdom of God” (v. 34).
Dear brothers and sisters, the Lord does not seek skilled commentators of the Scriptures, as much as he seeks docile hearts that, welcoming his Word, allow themselves to be changed within. This is why it is so important to be familiar with the Gospel, to always have it at hand — even a small-sized Gospel in our pockets, in our purses to read and reread, to be passionate about it. When we do this, Jesus, the Word of the Father, enters into our hearts, he becomes intimate with us and we bear fruit in Him. Let us take for example today’s Gospel: it is not enough to read it and understand that we should love God and our neighbour. It is necessary that this commandment, which is the “great commandment”, resound in us, that it be assimilated, that it become the voice of our conscience. This way, it does not remain a dead letter, in the drawer of the heart, because the Holy Spirit makes the seed of that Word germinate in us. And the Word of God works, it is always in motion, it is living and active (cf. Heb 4:12). So each one of us can become a living, different and original “translation”, not a repetition but a living, different and original “translation” of the one Word of love that God gives us. This is what we see in the lives of the Saints for example. None of them is the same as another. They are all different, but with the same Word of God.
-->Today, therefore, let us take the example of this scribe. Let us repeat Jesus’ words, making them resound in us: “To love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind and with all our strength and my neighbour as myself”. And let us ask ourselves: does this commandment truly orient my life? Does this commandment resonate in my daily life? It would be good this evening, before going to sleep, to make an examination of conscience on this Word, to see if we have loved the Lord today and if we have done a little good to those we happened to meet. May every encounter bring about a little bit of good, a little bit of love that comes from this Word. May the Virgin Mary, in whom the Word of God was made flesh, teach us to welcome the living word of the Gospel in our hearts.
EliminaBENEDICT XVI
RispondiEliminaANGELUS 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.
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.