When the scribe asks Jesus which commandment of the law is the greatest, one might have expected Jesus to reply with the First Commandment…which is ”I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me.” In fact, I suspect it might have been quite a surprise to the group of listeners that Jesus doesn’t mention any of the Ten Commandments.
I think that is because the Ten Commandments (along with the precepts of the Church) represent the bare minimum requirement to have a relationship with God. Objectively speaking, if we don’t live the Ten Commandments, we fall into in a state of mortal sin. In a state of mortal sin, we are cut off from the grace of God by our own sinful actions.
At the same time, simply living the Ten Commandments won’t necessarily make us holy. I think this is the perspective Jesus brings to the conversation when He refers to the She’ma as the greatest commandment. She’ma is the Hebrew word for hear or listen. The She’ma is the great prayer from the Old Covenant that was as important to the first century Jews as the “Our Father” is to Catholics. Our reading has the She’ma translated in english: “Listen O’ Israel, the Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.”
As it indicates in the Catechism, the call of Christ in the life of the Catholic is to a radical reorientation of our whole life, a return, a conversion to God with all our heart, an end of sin, a turning away from evil, with repugnance toward evil actions. At the same time, a life in Christ entails the desire and resolution to change one's life, with hope in God's mercy and trust in the help of his grace.
Have you ever wondered what the world might look like if we truly followed the greatest commandment? If we were to truly put God first? If we were to put God before money? If we were to put God before sports? If we were to put God before our careers? If we were to put God before our lust? And perhaps the toughest, if we were to put God before politics?
There are so many things we don’t get right about loving God. On the one hand we say that we love God and we want Him in our lives. But on the other hand, we often tell God that He has to stay here in the Church and that He can’t rule over the other aspects of our lives.
Some of us proudly declare ourselves to be pro-choice, ignoring that the giving and taking of life is really for God alone. In Church we’ll say “Thy will be done”’, but once we leave here we start singing the tune “I Did It My Way.”
If we have such disrespect for God and His law, it is no wonder that we have troubles loving our neighbors. If we can’t give the creator of the universe, the creator of each and every one of us, the proper respect, I guess it should be of no surprise that we have troubles giving our neighbors their due respect, let alone truly loving them exactly as God made them and as God has asked us to love them.
Have you ever wondered what the world might look like if we chose to focus on the best in each other as opposed to findings and exploiting the smallest flaws? If we were to truly show respect and love for those who seem to be different from us? To reach out to and embrace those who feel marginalized? To truly accept people exactly as God created them as opposed to telling them they are not good enough unless they “transition” into what society says they should be? What might the world look like without that prejudice, bias, and hatred?
Although, to be fair, what Jesus actually said is to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. It is pretty evident that the current level of self-love out there is pitifully low. Just look at all the self-destructive behaviors and lifestyles that people commonly lead. All of the variety of dysphorias, all of the variety of addictions, all of the variety of anorexias; not to mention the other psychological disorders…many of which stem from a deep interior self-hatred. A hatred of what God created. A hatred of that which is in the image of God. A hatred of that which God declared is good. A hatred that is fueled by the standards of our secular society. Considering all of that, should we be surprised at the deterioring state of our society?
We must always remember that our dignity is not found in the secular definitions of the human person. Our dignity is not found by “properly classifying” someone in a prison that was formed by some identity think-tank. Our dignity is found only in the fact that we were created in ‘the image of God’: the human body, animated by a spiritual soul, at the very moment of conception. The whole human person, from womb to tomb, is intended to be a temple of the Holy Spirit, in the body of Christ.
We must allow Divine Love to totally consume us. We must allow Divine Love to transform us from the image that has been defined by the secular order to the pure ‘image of God’, purging us of anything and everything that is not of God. Any false identity that has been placed on us by society must be renounced and surrendered to the Lord. Any false values that conflict with the ultimate Truth of Jesus Christ, must be renounced and surrendered to the Lord.
This transformation, not only allows us to have a life that is truly happy, joyous, and free, but more importantly, prepares us for the ultimately communion with the Holy Trinity.
The Christian life consists in living to the full the grace of Baptism, in the total gift of self to the Love of the Father, in order to live like Christ, in the fire of the Holy Spirit, and through His love for others.
There is one moment mentioned in the Catechism that we should all look forward to participating in. The Father's power 'raised up' Christ his Son and by doing so perfectly introduced his Son's humanity, including His Body (that’s us), into the Trinity.
The mechanism for this is ultimately through the Eucharist and authentically living the Sacramental life of the Catholic Church. But, the Sacraments can only be as efficacious as our disposition toward receiving them, willing them with the right intention, and ultimately surrendering in true conformance to the Truth of Jesus Christ.
If we prefer to put the standards of the secular society above the Truth of Jesus Christ, the Truth as He teaches it through His Holy Catholic Church; then we are not following the greatest commandment. If we choose to embrace the lies of human secularism over the reality of the Catholic faith, particularly as it relates to preserving human dignity in the image of God; then we are not following the greatest commandment.
Freedom and choice detached from Truth is not freedom and choice. If we are to obey the greatest commandment, then we must be willing to be fully conformed to the Truth of Jesus Christ. Only the Truth will set us free.
At some point each of us should ask ourselves why we are Catholic. If the answer isn’t to completely surrender our entire personal identity over to be completely transformed into the image of Christ, then we should ask we. That is how we pick up our cross and follow our Lord to the Kingdom of God.
Thanks be to God!
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