Today we have the last of four Gospel passages where Jesus faces his religious opponents. Last week we heard how the Pharisees tried to trap him by making him choose between Caesar his Jewish faith. This week it’s the Sadducees who try to trick him, wanting Jesus to choose which deserves the most love, God or our neighbor. Jesus masterfully combines two pieces of Hebrew Scripture in his answer.
Deuteronomy 6:4-9 commands Jews to love God with one’s whole, heart, soul and strength — that is, with everything that makes up our very selves. Leviticus 19:18 teaches that the love of God is shown in love toward one’s neighbor. Jesus puts these two teachings together. For to “love your neighbor as yourself” is to love with your whole heart, soul and mind, which is exactly how you also are to love God. This unity between loving God and loving neighbor is one of Jesus’ most consistent teachings. It is the heart of his famous parable about the Good Samaritan and several of his sayings, such as whatsoever you do to the least of your brothers, you do to me (Matthew 25:40).
Manifesting God’s love through how we love others is also how our Church grows, how we evangelize. We hear this in our reading today from the Epistle to the Thessalonians. Believed to be the earliest New Testament writing, composed around 49-51 C.E. (Christian Era), St. Paul urges the Thessalonians to become a model for all … for from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth. Today’s Scriptures about the unity between these two great commandments links this Sunday with the feast of All Saints, happening on this Sunday. Saints show us, in a multitude of diverse ways, what it means to love one’s neighbor with the total love with which we also love God. Vatican II called us to live our baptisms and aspire to holiness, meaning to keep trying to love better always. May our Scriptures this Sunday empower us to do just that!
— Blog entry by Sister Mary Garascia
The post October 25, 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Loving: a Sunday Scriptures blog first appeared on Sisters of the Precious Blood.