Gospel according to Saint Mark 12,28-34
A teacher of the Law had been listening to this discussion and admired how Jesus answered them. So he came up and asked him, «Which commandment is the first of all?». Jesus answered, «The first is: ‘Hear, Israel! The Lord, our God, is One Lord; and you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength’. And after this comes another one: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’. There is no commandment greater than these two».
The teacher of the Law said to him, «Well spoken, Master; you are right when you say that he is one and there is no other. To love him with all our heart, with all our understanding and with all our strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves is more important than any burnt offering or sacrifice». Jesus approved this answer and said, «You are not far from the kingdom of God». But after that, no one dared to ask him any more questions.
A know-it-all scribe
Luis CASASUS President of the Idente Missionaries
Rome, November 03, 2024 | XXXI Sunday in Ordinary Time
Deut 6: 2-6; Heb 7: 23-28; Mk 12: 28-34
In today’s Gospel, Christ does not invite the scribe to follow him; he does not have the same attitude as with the Rich Young Man, who was not generous, but was marked and impressed by Jesus’ message. That is why he revealed to him what should be the next step in his path of perfection: to sell everything, give the proceeds to the poor and follow Jesus.
On this occasion, the Master immediately detected the scribe’s pride. He was not willing to change, as we see in his response, where he adds to what Jesus said that love of God and neighbor is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices, using the words of Psalm 40, which he knew by heart from his training in the Scriptures.
That is the way some of us proceed: always wanting to have the last word, pretending that we know more than our interlocutor on any matter, and trying to prove it, trying to teach him something. Sometimes, this leads to pathetic situations, where, if that person knows that you are an engineer, he will start to give you some lesson on the different forms of energy… and you will be paralyzed, because you will not know how to make him see that he does not even know 1% of what he thinks he knows. He is what is called a know-it-all.
Although in some cases this behavior is a constant, we can all be victims of this form of arrogance, because our ego does not rest in its desire to put us above others. Certainly, this was the intention of the scribe who today dialogues with Christ, trying to receive praise for his knowledge or even to test the moral and intellectual authority of the Master and discredit him before everyone.
What this form of behavior manifests is a clear insecurity, a sense of superiority that leads to not listening to anyone and, finally, a difficulty in having a true intimate relationship with others. The latter is catastrophic for the spiritual life. In today’s Gospel text, we see, in fact, that the scribe did not seek to learn anything, but to impress Jesus.
In fact, Christ’s response is both withering and diplomatic: You are not far from the Kingdom of God. But, to be near does not mean to be inside…To be in the Kingdom of heaven means to participate, to serve, to be aware that the smallest of our desires, actions, thoughts and intentions, collaborates with God’s plan.
In this way, we can understand that the supreme sign of love for God is obedience, which is a virtue, a religious vow and – above all – is how St. Paul describes the life of Christ: Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross (Phil. 2:8).
By telling the proud scribe that he was not far from the Kingdom of God, Christ is confirming to him both that the Spirit was at work in him and also that he still lacked something important. In any case, hearing these words from Jesus must have been comforting and provocative for the expert in the Law. We, aspiring missionary disciples, are surely in a similar situation, where what we need to hear in our hearts is: You are not far from the truth, but sharpen your ear.
There can be nothing in our life that is not an act of obedience. Of course, that overcomes our energies and the tyranny of the ego subdues us again and again. Perhaps I can say that my love today is more complete than yesterday, but I can never be satisfied, which is why I continually need the help of the Holy Spirit and continuous prayer to navigate that boundless ocean that is charity.
Moreover, for me to be able to love my neighbor authentically and without exception, it is not only necessary to love God, but first of all to recognize and gather the love that he is giving me in the form of forgiveness, trust and a continuous vocation. As Benedict XVI recalled in his Apostolic Letter Porta Fidei (2011), what the world needs today in a special way is the credible witness of those who, enlightened in mind and heart by the Word of the Lord, are capable of opening the hearts and minds of many to the desire for God and for true life, that which has no end.
—ooOoo—
Let us observe how today’s Gospel ends: And no one dared to ask him any more questions…That reaction is that of one who has truly understood and knows that now it is his turn to make a decision, he understands that he must take a step.
In our second year of college, an Astronomy professor explained to us Gauss’s method for calculating an orbit from three observations. He patiently answered all our questions and admirably made clear all the steps of the method. A colleague dared to say that it did not seem possible to do all the calculations without a computer, which we were already beginning to use. At his disbelief and insistence, despite the fact that the professor gave him details of how Gauss calculated in 1801 the orbit of the dwarf planet Ceres, he asked him to go to the blackboard and forced him to calculate an orbit, giving him four observations. After hours of work, he fortunately came up with the correct solution.
But the moral is that asking questions and raising objections is easier than setting out to follow a plan.
Loving God with all your heart is more than having sympathy, admiration or respect for Him.
As is well known, in the Hebrew language, the “heart” was the center not only of emotions, but also of rationality and decisions. To love God with all one’s heart means to surrender control of all decisions and feelings to Him. It also means maintaining an “undivided heart”, a heart in which there is no place for the idols that we make because they serve as an easy refuge, an escape: activities that I engage in with ease, superficial ways of dealing with people, or affections that I cultivate for my own selfish comfort. If it is God who fills the heart with his word, there is no room for the greed of money, whims and ambitions when it comes to evaluating what to do, say or want.
In reality, Christ is NOT simply saying that the commandment of love is the most important; he states that loving God and neighbor is the first of all the commandments, not “the only one”. The message is that no moral precept, no commandment can be lived fully, without limit, except on the foundation of love for God, which is linked to love of friend and enemy.
Moreover, we know that the goal of an authentic spiritual life is not only fidelity to the commandments, but union with God. This explains why we read in the Gospel: He who loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will make our abode in him, says the Lord (Jn 14: 23). Another explicit and clear way to make us understand what is the dialogue (of gestures of love) with the Divine Persons.
—ooOoo—
Let us remember how an intelligent and heroic saint, St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), understood the words of Christ. He summed it up with a slogan that became famous: Love and then do what you will.
St. Augustine gives several illustrations to highlight two points that can lead us to confuse genuine love with a self-serving attitude. First, we are often deceived by appearances. Pampering a child may give the impression of being affectionate, but it could just be a selfish way of gaining his trust and approval. On the other hand, punishing or admonishing a child may sometimes seem harsh and unkind, but in reality it could be an act of affectionate discipline, in the hope that the child will mend his or her ways.
St. Augustine tells us to watch our motivation. Our actions must be motivated by love. He states that we can love and do whatever we want because true love desires only the good of the loved one. Love goes far beyond simply not hurting anyone. This is often the excuse used to justify sins against chastity. What is wrong with masturbation or pornography? I do not harm anyone. No, love continuously and actively seeks the good. The good of the other and also our good. And all sin still does harm to God and to ourselves, if not to others.
St. Augustine’s dictum helps us to see how the two parts of the Commandment of Love are inseparable. The moment we try to separate them and favor one over the other, everything falls apart.
Loving God is the foundation of the very possibility of loving anyone else, for the simple reason that only in relationship with God can we feel fundamentally loved. Only in relationship with God can we feel truly forgiven in spite of our fragility and offer forgiveness to others. We can only generate love if we feel truly recognized in this relationship that is rooted in the depths of our heart. Let us remember:
We love because He first loved us (1Jn 4: 19).
Otherwise, we will be greedy seekers of affection and love, sometimes looking like detached people. Many people are incapable of loving because they are unwilling to undergo the profound experience of recognizing themselves as sinners and yet undeservedly loved. If someone feels unlovable because he believes he does not deserve to be loved, he will be equally incapable of loving others whom he believes do not deserve his love.
—ooOoo—
In the First Reading Moses tells his people to fear the Lord and keep his commandments.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Psalm 111: 10). The fear of God is a gift of the Holy Spirit. And it is paradoxical, for normally fears paralyze us, but the fear of God has the opposite effect. Indeed, let us remember how Christ appears to the apostles on the waters (Mt 14: 22-33) and they were so panic-stricken that they began to cry out. However, Peter was filled with courage and began to walk on the waters, something impossible for the strength of a human being. On the contrary, when he began to have a different fear, the fear of the wind and the waves… he began to sink.
Our Father and Founder speaks of the fear of God in this way:
Outside of Him, something other than Him, can only produce in our heart an immense and inexhaustible sadness. This sadness is produced by filial fear, a fear that launches us toward the Father with an extraordinary ambition. It imprints in our spirit a kind of jealousy; it is like a very fine sense of smell that allows us to quickly perceive what is useless and harmful to the life of holiness in order to reject it immediately. It is a spiritual instinct, not a judgment of reason. It is an act that the Holy Spirit puts in the soul of those who have prepared themselves for it (In the Heart of the Father).
The scribe who addresses Jesus today was probably not moved by the fear of God. We can understand that indeed the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom because it opens our heart, it makes us afraid of losing him because of our lack of sensitivity. It makes us more prudent. Another example of what our ecstatic behavior is, our way of going towards what is valuable, on condition of abandoning what is less useful, what is unnecessary.
Let us take advantage of today to meditate on how the fear of God allows us to love in a way that is more and more similar to the way He loves us.
_______________________________
In the Sacred Hearts of Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
Luis CASASUS
President
