O.T.XXXI-B:Deut 6:2-6; Heb 7:22-28; Mk 12:28-34.

The central message of today's readings is the most fundamental principle of all religions, may be, except Islam. It is to love God in loving others and to love others in loving God.

The scribe asked Jesus to mention one law, but he mentioned two. This was the clearest way of saying that they cannot be separated. Between these two there is a bridge: there is no real love of God without love of neighbor, and no deep or lasting love of neighbor without love of God. (But many love God unawares.) If these two cannot be separated, they are really only one in practice – like two hands. When a person loses one hand he is said to be “half-handed.”

The Church’s one of the most famous examples of this link between loving God and loving neighbor comes from France way back in the 300s, when Christianity had recently emerged from a long period of persecution.

At the time, a young army officer named Martin lived near the city of Amiens. He lived the rough and tumble life of the military, but he had begun receiving instruction in the Christian faith. He was what we call a "catechumen" - someone who was being taught the Catholic faith in preparation to receive the sacrament of baptism. So he knew about Jesus and about the inseparability of the two great commandments to love God and neighbor.

One cold winter's day, as he returned to the city gates on his huge war horse and in his full military regalia, a poor beggar shuffled up to him to ask for money. The man was dressed in rags, almost naked, and violently shivering with cold. Martin reined in his mighty charger when he saw the beggar, and felt his heart moved with sincere compassion.

But he didn't have any money with him. He stared for a moment at the beggar, and then dismounted. He took off his long, thick military cloak and held it in one hand while he drew his sword in his other hand. Then he slashed the cloak in half, and gave one half to the freezing beggar with a smile and kind word. He slung the other half onto his own shoulders, remounted, and continued back on to the barracks, where his fellow soldiers gave him a hard time about his torn cloak.

That night, as he was sleeping, Jesus appeared to him in a vision, surrounded by angels, and - wonder of wonders – the Lord himself was wearing the cloak that Martin had given to the beggar!

Jesus looked with love and gratitude at Martin and said, "It was Martin, still only a catechumen, who gave me this cloak."

The future St. Martin was soon baptized, and afterwards followed his call to serve the King of Heaven instead of the Emperor of Rome, first as a monk, then as a priest, a missionary, and the holy Bishop of Tours.

Truly, our love for God and our love for neighbor are two sides of the very same coin – we can't have one without the other.

True love for our neighbor can't be based on how much we like our neighbor or on how much we can get from our neighbor. Those motivations won't last, and they won't lead us to the true self-giving that Christ-like love involves. True love for our neighbor can only come from a true love for God, in whose image our neighbor is created.

Strict orthodox Jews wore little leather sachets (phylacteries) around their wrists, containing two verses from Scripture. (They still do, when they are at prayer.) One of these verses was, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul” (Deut 11:13), and the other was, “You must love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev 19:18).

Loving God with our whole heart is the key to everything in life; because our relationship with God affects everything and everyone in our life.  St. Augustine wrote: "Love God – and do what you like."

 

There is an old philosophical dictum that says you cannot love what you do not know. And that's true.  To love something, we have to know it. And so, if we want to grow in our love for God, which is the surest way to grow in our love for neighbor, the best thing to do is to get to know God better.

Here are two things we can do to know God better.

First, spend fifteen minutes a day this week reading the Bible. The Bible is God's Word - he reveals himself there. Read through the Letters of St. Paul, or one of the Gospels, or even one of the books from the Old Testament (though these are not always easy to interpret).

Second, do a holy hour in front of the Blessed Sacrament. Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist. When we spend time with him, near the Tabernacle, in silence, in prayerful reflection or even in prayerful reading, he speaks to our hearts. He reveals himself to us. We have our Fall adoration on 12^th and 13^th. It will help us to get into the habit of it and continue it. Besides these two, doing spiritual reading and scripture meditation will help deepening our knowledge of God, leading to love him with all our heart. Taking no effort doing any of these would manifest disinterest, or I don’t care attitude, in knowing God. Let’s make a resolution today to try to increase our efforts to seek to know God and love Him with our whole being.