WHAT 'S GOING ON WITH THE COMMANDMENT OF LOVE.

THIRTIETH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME. YEAR A.
October 26, 2008.
(First reading: Exodus 22:20-26) (Psalm 18:2-4, 47, 51)
(Second reading: 1 Thessalonians 1:5-10) (Gospel: Matthew 22:34-40)


WHAT'S GOING ON WITH THE
COMMANDMENT OF LOVE.

In today's gospel Jesus tells us what the commandment of love is:

When a scholar of the law asked Jesus: "'Teacher, which commandment of the law is the greatest'? He said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments'" (Matthew 22:36-40).

Our world has intentionally distorted the meaning of the commandment of LOVE.
There is nothing more dangerous to the world than a "law" which upholds justice, peace, mutual respect and unity universally.

From the perspective of the powers of the world, such a "dangerous" law must be dealt with. And it has come to happen that for the world it is more efficacious to maintain such "law" as long as its meaning is totally distorted (which is another way of destroying it).

In the world the "law" of love (and the word "love") has been reduced to mean anything from an act of sexual intercourse to a prudish sentimental affection for something or someone to a pious feeling disconnected from reality.

Thus, the law of "love" has been turned into something totally alien to the meaning given it by the gospel.

Once true LOVE is stripped of its gospel meaning, then the commandement of LOVE in no longer incompatible with war, with killing of the unborn, with the dispossession and impoverishment of human beings.

What, then, is LOVE according to the gospel?
According to the gospel, love is the self-sacrificing way of life which moves a human being to offer himself for the well-being of his fellow human beings; love is the mutual respect which causes a person to look after the interests of others before his own interests.

It is this meaning which defines love as the summation of all human laws, of all human aspirations. This is the Love which is referred to by Jesus as the commandment on which "the whole law and the prophets depend on".

The gospel reminds us what is the true commandment of Love.