S•E•E•I•N•G
November 22, 2020
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal
It’s all pretty simple for our Lord to say: Feed the hungry. Give the thirsty something to drink.
Clothe the naked. Welcome the stranger. Care for the sick. Visit the prisoner. But that’s not so
easy in our experience of life. I wish it were as easy as going through a checklist and categorizing people as those who cared for “the least of these” and those who did not. And I don’t think it’s so easy to categorize ourselves either as a sheep or a goat of this parable.
The reality is we are both. I’ll bet each of you has a story just like mine, a time when you fed, clothed, visited, and cared for one of these LEAST AMONG US. But another time, when you drove past, looked away, or pretended not to see the man or woman holding a sign asking for food, work, or some other help.
The LEAST OF THESE are in all our lives. They do not always fit our stereotyped images. Sure, it might be the guy on the street corner asking for a handout. It might be a welfare mother asking for food or the guy who just got out of prison – again. Sometimes, though, it’s someone who lives under the same roof as me. Or someone anonymous. Or someone who might be sitting next to me.
And it’s not always about physical needs. The LEAST OF THESE also have emotional and spiritual needs. They are the ones who have fewer resources and options than do we. They may be overwhelmed by life and underwhelmed by support. They are the ones who feel they are hanging on by a thread. They may be those who, when we do what we want, we don’t really worry about their response. They are the ones we threaten or intimidate simply because of who we are, what we have, what we can do.
I think we all want to make a difference. We want to make a difference in the life of another, in the world, in the Church. Maybe that’s why we sometimes struggle with our decisions and the choices we make. It’s the reason we pray for God’s will. Deep down we want to do what’s right.
The people gathered for judgment in today’s Gospel (Mt 25:31-46) have no idea what difference they are making. They are just going on about their lives. One cared for the LEAST OF THESE and the other didn’t. They seem oblivious to the consequences of their actions. They both ask the same question: “When did we see you?”
Let’s not literalize this story. Let’s not make this into a search for the LEAST OF THESE so we can be helpful and caring and get to heaven. Let’s not start counting and keeping score of how many people we helped and how many we passed by, overlooked, or said no to. That’s too easy. We already know we should help and care for one another.
It’s a reality that we always have a choice before us, and what we choose always makes a difference – for good or ill – in someone’s life. The goat and sheep metaphor worked in Jesus’ day, but we need a new metaphor. We need a new way of understanding what’s going on.
There are two ways we are pulled constantly. We are pulled by God in one direction and our humanity in another. It is the conflict and contraction. It’s never just one or the other; it is always both. If we are really honest with ourselves, if we look deep within, we will see both aspects. We will see both our light and our darkness, our divinity and our humanity.
This story isn’t so much about assigning reward or punishment, about determining an eternal location, Maybe it’s pushing us to look at the truth of our lives, to look at the choices we make, and to be aware that our choices matter. We may not be guilty, but we all are responsible for the choices we make: to choose light, to choose life. The choices we make are not a one-time event, a single decision. They are a series of choices. And the further down the road we go, whether it is the road of light or the road of darkness, the harder it is and the longer it takes to return. Maybe we even reach that point of no return, a point where we just can’t find our way back. That’s a judgment on our life, but it’s a judgment each one of us makes, chooses, for ourselves. The King, sitting on the throne of his glory, simply names a few choices we make.
What do you see when you look at your life? What are the LEAST OF THESE showing you? We have the ability to open the channels of life, beauty, generosity, justice, compassion, just as we have the ability to block and close those channels.
Dear brothers and sisters, let us not take this parable as a final judgment on our life, but let us listen to it as a wake-up call. Let this be a chance to see ourselves through the eyes of one of the LEAST OF THESE. Let this parable help us to analyze what choices will lead us on the path of light? What choices will help us discover the light and beauty within ourselves and within the other? That light and beauty describe who we most authentically are.
What if we approached every person, every place, every circumstance, every choice as if we see Christ? And if we don’t, if we can’t see Christ, what if we approached every person, every place, every circumstance, every choice, as if Christ sees us? Either way, there is a “seeing” taking place. What if we allowed those “seeing” to push us deep into ourselves to uncover, rediscover, or maybe even discover for the first time?
S•E•E•I•N•G
November 22, 2020
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal
It’s all pretty simple for our Lord to say: Feed the hungry. Give the thirsty something to drink.
Clothe the naked. Welcome the stranger. Care for the sick. Visit the prisoner. But that’s not so
easy in our experience of life. I wish it were as easy as going through a checklist and categorizing people as those who cared for “the least of these” and those who did not. And I don’t think it’s so easy to categorize ourselves either as a sheep or a goat of this parable.
The reality is we are both. I’ll bet each of you has a story just like mine, a time when you fed, clothed, visited, and cared for one of these LEAST AMONG US. But another time, when you drove past, looked away, or pretended not to see the man or woman holding a sign asking for food, work, or some other help.
The LEAST OF THESE are in all our lives. They do not always fit our stereotyped images. Sure, it might be the guy on the street corner asking for a handout. It might be a welfare mother asking for food or the guy who just got out of prison – again. Sometimes, though, it’s someone who lives under the same roof as me. Or someone anonymous. Or someone who might be sitting next to me.
And it’s not always about physical needs. The LEAST OF THESE also have emotional and spiritual needs. They are the ones who have fewer resources and options than do we. They may be overwhelmed by life and underwhelmed by support. They are the ones who feel they are hanging on by a thread. They may be those who, when we do what we want, we don’t really worry about their response. They are the ones we threaten or intimidate simply because of who we are, what we have, what we can do.
I think we all want to make a difference. We want to make a difference in the life of another, in the world, in the Church. Maybe that’s why we sometimes struggle with our decisions and the choices we make. It’s the reason we pray for God’s will. Deep down we want to do what’s right.
The people gathered for judgment in today’s Gospel (Mt 25:31-46) have no idea what difference they are making.
going on about their lives. One cared for the LEAST OF THESE and the other didn’t. They seem oblivious to the consequences of their actions. They both ask the same question: “When did we see you?”
Let’s not literalize this story. Let’s not make this into a search for the LEAST OF THESE so we can be helpful and caring and get to heaven. Let’s not start counting and keeping score of how many people we helped and how many we passed by, overlooked, or said no to. That’s too easy. We already know we should help and care for one another.
It’s a reality that we always have a choice before us, and what we choose always makes a difference – for good or ill – in someone’s life. The goat and sheep metaphor worked in Jesus’ day, but we need a new metaphor. We need a new way of understanding what’s going on.
There are two ways we are pulled constantly. We are pulled by God in one direction and our humanity in another. It is the conflict and contraction. It’s never just one or the other; it is always both. If we are really honest with ourselves, if we look deep within, we will see both aspects. We will see both our light and our darkness, our divinity and our humanity.
This story isn’t so much about assigning reward or punishment, about determining an eternal location, Maybe it’s pushing us to look at the truth of our lives, to look at the choices we make, and to be aware that our choices matter. We may not be guilty, but we all are responsible for the choices we make: to choose light, to choose life. The choices we make are not a one-time event, a single decision. They are a series of choices. And the further down the road we go, whether it is the road of light or the road of darkness, the harder it is and the longer it takes to return. Maybe we even reach that point of no return, a point where we just can’t find our way back. That’s a judgment on our life, but it’s a judgment each one of us makes, chooses, for ourselves. The King, sitting on the throne of his glory, simply names a few choices we make.
What do you see when you look at your life? What are the LEAST OF THESE showing you? We have the ability to open the channels of life, beauty, generosity, justice, compassion, just as we have the ability to block and close those channels.
Dear brothers and sisters, let us not take this parable as a final judgment on our life, but let us listen to it as a wake-up call. Let this be a chance to see ourselves through the eyes of one of the LEAST OF THESE. Let this parable help us to analyze what choices will lead us on the path of light? What choices will help us discover the light and beauty within ourselves and within the other? That light and beauty describe who we most authentically are.
What if we approached every person, every place, every circumstance, every choice as if we see Christ? And if we don’t, if we can’t see Christ, what if we approached every person, every place, every circumstance, every choice, as if Christ sees us? Either way, there is a “seeing” taking place. What if we allowed those “seeing” to push us deep into ourselves to uncover, rediscover, or maybe even discover for the first time?
S•E•E•I•N•G
November 22, 2020
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal
It’s all pretty simple for our Lord to say: Feed the hungry. Give the thirsty something to drink.
Clothe the naked. Welcome the stranger. Care for the sick. Visit the prisoner. But that’s not so
easy in our experience of life. I wish it were as easy as going through a checklist and categorizing people as those who cared for “the least of these” and those who did not. And I don’t think it’s so easy to categorize ourselves either as a sheep or a goat of this parable.
A Wasted Opportunity
November 15, 2020
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal
The Gospel of Saint Matthew devotes two full chapters to the subject of the SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. How does Jesus prepare his followers for the day of his return? He tells them stories. These stories are well-known: the parable of the wise and foolish virgins; the parable of the sheep and the goats; and in today’s Gospel reading, the parable of the talents.
However, in our familiarity with these stories we might miss the importance of their setting. Each story is told in the context of his Second Coming. Jesus is teaching us how to prepare for his return.
Today’s passage (Mt. 25:14-30) begins with these simple words: “It will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them.” Even as he sets the stage, Jesus is telling us something important: we have an entrustment. Everything we have is given to us by God.
Do we see ourselves as stewards or owners? The answer makes all the difference because a steward lives for the day he will return the Master’s goods to Him. An owner believes his possessions are his to spend in any way he sees fit. Let us see what the Parable of the Talents teaches.
1. Today’s parable teaches us that our faith and work are inseparable. In the book of Genesis we see that God placed Adam in the garden to work it and take care of it. We were made to work. As Christians we have a mission that our Lord expects us to accomplish in the here and now. Far too many evangelical Christians today see their salvation as simply a “bus ticket to heaven.” They believe it doesn’t matter what they do while they “wait for the bus.” The Parable of the Talents teaches us what we are supposed to do while we await the return of our King. We are to work, using our talents to glorify God, serve the common good, and further God’s kingdom. Biblical success is working diligently here and now, using all the talents God has given us to produce the return expected by the Master.
We are tempted to feel sorry for the servant who received only one talent, but he was given more than enough to meet the master’s expectations. Just as the master expected his servants to do more than passively preserve what has been entrusted to them, so God expects us to generate a return by using our talents towards productive ends. The servants were given enough to produce more – it is the same with the gifts God has given us. The Apostle Paul writes (Eph 2:10): “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
2. The Parable of the Talents teaches that we are all created equal – but gifted differently. But even though we’re not deletequal in regard to the talents we’re given, the Lord expects us to make return with the equal distribution of time given to us before he returns, i.e. the five-talent servant to produce five more talents as he does, the two-talent servant to produce two more talents. The one talent servant was expected to make only one more but did not make any effort to do so. The master measures success by degrees of effort, as should we. Here we saw two of the servants were successful in the eyes of their master, while one was a failure.
ANTONIO STRADIVARI was born in Cremona, Italy, in 1644. Because Antonio’s voice was high and squeaky, he did not pass the audition for the Cremona Boys’ Choir. When he took violin lessons, the neighbors persuaded his parents to make him stop. Yet Antonio still wanted to make music. His friends made fun of him because his only talent was wood-carving. When Antonio was 22, he became an apprentice to a well-known violinmaker, Nicholas Amati. Under his master’s training, Antonio’s talent for carving grew, and his hobby became his craft.
He started his own violin shop when he was 36. He worked patiently and faithfully. By the time he died at 93, he had built over 1,500 violins, each one bearing a label that read, “Antonio Stradivarius of Cremona made in the year...” They are the most sought-after violins in the world and sell for more than $100,000 each. Antonio couldn’t sing or play or preach or teach, but he used the ability he had. And his violins are still making beautiful music today. Antonio is a challenge to people who have only a single talent and who try to bury the talent for fear of failure – like the lazy servant in Jesus’ parable.
3. The Parable of the Talents teaches that we work for the Master, not our own selfish purposes. The money that is given to the servants is not their own. The money they earn with the capital is not theirs to keep. The servants are only stewards of the master’s investment, and it is the quality of their stewardship that the master seeks to measure. We should maximize the use of our talents – not for our own selfish purposes but to honor God. We know that we work in a fallen world. Because of the curse of sin, our work will be difficult. But we should feel satisfaction and joy from doing our best with what God has given us in the place where His providence puts us, seeking to succeed in order to honor Him.
4. The Parable of the Talents shows that we will be held accountable. The Parable of the Talents is not about salvation or works righteousness but about how we use our work to fulfill our earthly callings. The unfaithful steward in this parable didn’t so much waste the master’s money – he wasted an opportunity. As a result, he was judged wicked and lazy. We are responsible for what we do for God with what we have been given, and one day we will be held responsible.
Dear Brothers and sisters, in the parables of the Second Coming, each story contains a depth of teaching regarding how we can prepare for his return in the everyday choices we make now. And above all, we are entrusted with something that is very valuable to God: the souls of those whom he loves. We have a great responsibility of the salvation of those souls. When he returns, we want to hear the voice of the Master’s invitation, “Come, share in My happiness!”
The Necessary Grace
November 8, 2020
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal
This parable of the ten virgins (Matt 25:1-13) is our Lord’s own sermon on His second coming,
and this particular parable is a warning parable so that the world may be ready when it
happens. This is a parable is intended to teach us about the suddenness and unexpectedness of
the coming of the Lord which, therefore, should call us to preparedness so that we are not caught in that unexpected moment, unprepared for His coming.
Examples of the unexpected moment of unpreparedness can be seen easily in our everyday lives. It is said that around half million people every year call for roadside service because they have run out of gas (in addition to flat tires, dead batteries, and misplaced keys). In today’s Gospel, it is not gasoline that is lacking but olive oil, the fuel used in lamps in Jesus’ day. The point is spelled out in verse 13: “Therefore, stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” Since no one can know the day or the hour, we must be constantly in a state of alertness, ready at any moment.
Jesus illustrates His point with the example of a burglary (Matt. 24:43-44). If the owner of the home had known the hour when the burglary would occur, he would have made sure to prevent it. And in verses 45-47, Jesus describes how He desires to find His disciples when He returns: “faithful and wise,” going about the tasks He has assigned them.
Today’s parable setting is a wedding in a typical Israeli village in the time of our Lord. A wedding was the greatest event in a village or a town, the greatest single social celebration. Everybody got involved – friends, family, extended family. It was a time of happiness and festivity. There were three elements in a Jewish marriage.
First was ENGAGEMENT, an official contract between the two fathers who were giving their daughter and their son to each other.
Second was BETROTHAL, the official ceremony. The couple would come together before friends and family to make vows and covenants and binding promises. But they don’t yet live together and consummate their marriage. (Mary and Joseph were in this second phase when Jesus was born.)
It might take up to a year for the young man to get things ready to take the bride to be his own. He had to provide a place for her, perhaps build an addition on his father’s house, or a house of his own, or to purchase land and cultivate a field, and show that he could care for her. That was just the official wedding.
The third phase is what we see in today’s Gospel. She is waiting with all of her bridesmaids, and he arrives with all of the men. He collects his bride and her maids, and they all go with torches, parading through the village in a celebration, singing and talking with joy. HE HAS PREPARED A HOME FOR HER. Then the wedding party will go into the house and celebrate as long as seven days.
Now we ask: Who are these girls? Whom do they represent? And it’s very clear from what our Lord says that they are professed Christians, those who claim to belong to Christ. They are those who have gathered with the assembly of Christian people to await the coming of the Lord. They are those who say they know Christ and they anticipate His coming, who say they believe and know about the eternal wedding banquet. And they know the time is near, even saying they’ve made their preparation. They have on their wedding garment and have their torches.
Their presence symbolizes their interest, and their torches symbolize their profession of faith in Christ. They show outward marks of watching for the coming of the bridegroom, outward marks of readiness, outward marks of commitment to Jesus Christ. They’re part of the believing community. They love to hear the Gospel and believe the Good News. They profess to be disciples, waiting for the Son to come, desiring the Kingdom – to be with him forever.
When you see these ten of these virgins, they’re not very easy to distinguish – all have on wedding garments. all are chosen bridesmaids, all attend to the bride, and all have torches. But they are not alike. And this is the message of the parable.
In Matt 25:2 we learn: five of them were wise and five were foolish. The searcher of the heart knows in which group we belong. All of us may not be outwardly distinguishable, but inwardly we may be very different indeed, perhaps wise or perhaps foolish. The Lord reads our character and marks our place. In every assembly of worshipers, the Lord knows those that are His and those that are not. We all say we wait for His coming, we have on our garments, our torches in hand. But He knows whether we are wise or whether we are stupid.
And the differentiation here is preparedness. How prepared we are? Preparation on our part is the only explanation of wisdom or foolishness. Each bridesmaid had everything external. But the foolish ones hadn’t cared for the most necessary thing, and that is the oil so they could light the torch.
Now, what is that oil? The oil is like the wedding garment in Matthew 22:11 where the king calls a wedding for his son, and he sees among the guests a man without a wedding garment. He also is unprepared.
So THE OIL IS THE NECESSARY GRACE WITHOUT WHICH NO MAN SHALL SEE THE LORD. It is genuine holiness granted by faith in Jesus Christ. It is a transformed inner life. The Lord is not looking for intellectualness or religiosity, but rather a truly transformed life. And the purpose of the parable is to warn us not to be caught in such unpreparedness when the Lord comes.
ARE YOU PREPARED to stand in front of Him and give an account? ARE YOU PREPARED to enter in to meet the end of our life, where the faithful will be with Christ forever? Amen.
Purity of Heart and Media
November 1, 2020
Dcn. Dennis Walters
Today we celebrate the feast of All Saints. Most of these are saints whom the world has never
heard of; but they’re saints because they now see the face of God “as He is.” Whether they
lived heroic or what we would call “ordinary” Christian lives, their deeds manifested, to one degree or another, the program of holiness outlined by Jesus in the Beatitudes. They hungered and thirsted for righteousness and were satisfied. More to the point, they gained the purity of heart that enables them to see God.
T oday we celebrate the feast of All Saints. Most of these are saints whom the world has never heard of; but they’re saints because they now see the face of God “as He is.” Whether they lived heroic or what we would call “ordinary” Christian lives, their deeds manifested, to one degree or another, the program of holiness outlined by Jesus in the Beatitudes. They hungered and thirsted for righteousness and were satisfied. More to the point, they gained the purity of heart that enables them to see God.
We sometimes equate purity of heart with sexual purity. It’s that, of course, but much more than that. True purity of heart is a kind of single-mindedness, a fixation on things of ultimate value and a willingness to do what it takes to obtain them. It’s a delight in God and the things of God that the world often calls fanaticism. It grows through a determined effort to practice virtue, such as poverty of spirit, meekness, mercy, and penitential mourning over one’s own sins and those of the world. This purity of heart may not have been completed for them at the time of death, and may have required the purifying fires of Purgatory, but it’s complete now. Everyone in heaven is a saint.
We celebrate this feast on the eve of perhaps the most contentious national election any of us have ever seen. I’m assuming that most of you may already have voted, so I won’t say anything about what this election means for us. Rather, I It underscores the need for purity of heart at a time like this.
Our society is plagued with misinformation. More than any culture in history, we have access to information through the internet, online libraries, broadcast and print news, social media, and other avenues. Every day we’re bombarded by stories of hackers pushing disinformation, conspiracy theories, “fake news,” rumors, and half -truths. More than ever, political campaigns thrive on negative ads, innuendo approaching slander, unprovable allegations, and promises that no real politician can deliver on. Networks hire “fact checkers” to validate or disprove assertions, but who have their own biases. We’re left with the question, Whom do we trust to speak the truth?
To a spiritually sensitive person, there’s something demonic in what’s going on. Yes, human beings are responsible for the misinformation they transmit through technology; some of it may be well-intentioned, and some a deliberate effort to court trouble. But the sheer quantity of all this, coming at a time of rapid moral disintegration complicated by pandemic in a divided country, suggests that a demonic agency is at work. To recognize it, we need to be aware of the devil’s M.O. – his method of operation. His grand strategy is to divide and conquer. If you’re the devil, you start by arousing people’s curiosity. Then you distract them from the truth by raising conjectures and possibilities, especially negative ones. You work up doubt and confusion so as to undermine trust. You get people to start asking questions but keep them from buying the answers. You sow discord by ladling out just enough real information seasoned with fabrications to get them suspecting one another. Suspicion leads to fear, fear leads to distrust, distrust leads to division. Then, if you’re the devil, you step back and let the humans do the rest of your work. Simple.
In his own contest with the devil, Jesus showed us how to deal with demonic suggestions. When tempted to listen to voices coming from the internet and the media, he reminds us that we live not by them but by what comes from the mouth of God. When afraid that God won’t hear our prayers for our impossible situation, he calls us to trust Him and not put Him to the test. When exhorted to throw our complete allegiance behind one political party or another, he warns us that we worship God, and him only shall we serve (Matt. 4:3-10).
Scripture says that fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. One who is pure in heart lives by the fear of the Lord; he or she can recognize the voice of the Evil One behind the seductive headlines, and resist his tactics. As with sexual purity, purity of heart requires what spiritual writers call
“custody of the eyes.” We control our impulses to look at or listen to things that distract us. We need to use the internet, but we keep our focus on what is necessary. Same with Facebook, Instagram, or other social media: we avoid curiosity, trolling for juicy posts. To maintain purity of heart in a digital age, we follow a simple rule of thumb: seek whatever leads toward God and toward his peace; turn from whatever leads away from him and tends toward suspicion, fear, doubt, or anger.
On this feast of All Saints we remember those who attained the purity of heart that lets them see God. Some of them are members of our own families. They faced issues of division and misinformation just as we do, and they overcame them. Some of the seductive noise surrounding this election will quiet down once the votes are counted, but the temptation to peek at one more conspiracy theory will still be with us. We need to resist. Our hope is that, when our true identity as God’s children is revealed, “we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope based on him makes himself pure, as he is pure” (1John 3:2-3). Purity of heart is possible for us, too.
GOLDEN CHAINS
October 25, 2020
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal
T here is a legend handed down from the early Church about John, the beloved disciple of Jesus, It was only John among the twelve apostles who lived into old age. In his later years, not only his body but also his eyesight, and in some sense his mind began to fail him. Eventually, according to the legend, John came to the point that he could only speak five words, one sentence, which he would repeat over and over.
You can imagine the high regard in which the early Church must have held the last surviving apostle of Jesus. The legend says that every Lord’s Day, John would be carried into the midst of the congregation that had assembled for worship in the Church at Ephesus where John spent the last years of his life. Total silence would fall over the congregation, even though they already knew what John was going to say. Then the old man would speak the words: “My children, love one another.” Over and over, he would repeat them until he grew tired from talking. They listened as John preached his five-word sermon over and over: “My children, love one another.”
Jesus gave this message in Passion Week before the Friday when Jesus was to be crucified. He had entered the city and been hailed as the Messiah, the deliverer of the nation from Roman bondage, the One who would come to set Israel free, the One who would come and make all things right. They hoped, they wishfully believed, that He indeed would be that Messiah.
But rather than attacking the Romans, as they thought He might, he attacked them. At the very heart of their nation. On Monday of Holy Week, He attacked their false religious system and cleansed the temple. Then later He returned to the temple and spent the day teaching there and preaching the gospel of the Kingdom. Alongside of these events in the life of our Lord, there had been mounting and rising animosity, hatred, and venom among the religious leaders. Scripture says they already were plotting His murder. Here was the man who contradicted their teaching, who gained a greater hearing than they had, and who could do things they couldn’t even imagine doing – and they wanted Him dead. He was a threat to their position. He was a threat to their popularity. He was a threat to their doctrine. And when He came into the city of Jerusalem, He was hailed as Messiah and the people were flocking after Him. But it wasn’t an easy thing to eliminate Him because people liked him, so they attempted to make Him look bad – with Rome and with His own people. They confronted Him with a series of questions, questions designed to discredit Him. They believed He would be forced to answer them in such a way that He would find Himself in a difficult position either with Rome or with the Jews.
They asked Him whether or not they should pay taxes to Caesar. That was a POLITICAL QUESTION, When that failed, they asked a second question (Mt 22:23), about His view on resurrection, a THEOLOGICAL QUESTION of their major doctrine. Another failed attempt. Then they come with a third question, with a spiritual dimension. This we heard in today’s Gospel (Mt 22:36): “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
In the Gospel today, Jesus combines the commandment to love God with the commandment to love one’s neighbor, giving it as the one Commandment of supreme importance in Christian life. They had hoped to get Jesus to say something that superseded Mosaic authority. Then He would be a blasphemer, discrediting Himself. He would become unpopular with the people who revered Moses as the greatest of all. Yet, this third trap also failed. Jesus told them what they already knew, that the number one thing is to love God with your whole being, your heart, your soul, and your mind. (Mark’s recording of this passage indicates that the Lord also said “your strength.”)
The word “HEART” in the Hebrew understanding is the core of a person’s identity. It produces thoughts, words, actions. The word “SOUL” refers best to emotion. For example, in Matthew 26:38 it says, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful.” And word “MIND” has to do with moving ahead with energy. These are the channels for love to be perfectly balanced. It’s an intelligent love, it’s a feeling love, it’s a willing love, and it’s a serving love. It continues right out to how we act in our physical strength. So, our intellectual part, our emotional part, the part that is our will, and our physical part all come together to love God, to love God with our total being, all that we are.
Dear brothers and sisters, it is said that Christianity isn’t that complicated: If you love God, you’ll do what He says. If you love men, you’ll do what they need. That’s all. Matthew 22:40 sums it up. “The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”
In this we see two golden chains in the scroll of the history of redemption. They are inseparable. Everything God said in the Old Testament in included in this; everything else is just a definition, an extension and explanation of that. We all have come to the point in our life where we say, “I don’t love God as perfectly as I should, and I don’t love my neighbor as perfectly as I should.” We need to remember two things: ONE, we have a Savior to forgive the past; and TWO, we have Jesus Christ to help us in the future. Fidelity to God and charity toward others will challenge us into action.