Matthew 22: 34-40
When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
The Command to Love
I read this Sunday’s Gospel reading in the light of several other biblical texts: “God is love” (I John 4:8 and 16). “We love [God] because [God] first loved us” (I John 4:19). “In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins” (I John 4: 9-10). “The love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Romans 5:5). And “whoever loves God must also love his brother [and sister]” (I John 4:21).
In the first three Gospels, Jesus is asked which is the greatest commandment. He gives the standard answer: it is love. But this love has two dimensions. The first is love of God with all we are and have (Deuteronomy 6:5). The second is love of all who are our neighbors in this world—all other people (Leviticus 19:18). The Hebrew word ahavah and Greek word agape used for love in this Gospel reading and the two texts quoted by Jesus mean “sacrificial love.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church of 1992, #2055, refers to “this twofold yet single commandment of love,” which is the foundation of our life in Christ.
—Father Bob Hagan, SJ, is a member of a community of senior Jesuits at Saint Ignatius Hall in Florissant, Missouri. He does limited spiritual direction, mostly online; gives sacramental care to the lay Catholics in the adjacent retirement community; writes occasional reflections for Jesuit Prayer; posts various daily items and a longer weekly reflection on the Sunday Mass readings on his Facebook site at Bob Hagan SJ; and drives fellow Jesuits who no longer drive wherever they want to go.
Prayer
O my God, I love you above all things, with my whole heart and soul, because you are all-good and worthy of all love. I love my neighbor as myself for the love of you. I forgive all who have injured me and ask pardon of all whom I have injured. Amen.
—A traditional Catholic Prayer known as the “Act of Charity”
God of love, fill my heart with genuine compassion for others. Teach me to see Christ in the poor, the lonely, and the forgotten. Give me the courage to act with kindness even when it requires sacrifice. May every act of charity become a reflection of the love You have poured into my life. Amen.
—“A Prayer for Charity” from the website of the Missionary Society of St. Columban