THE PERFECT LOVE OF GOD AND NEIGHBOURS

HOMILY FOR THURSDAY OF THE NINTH WEEK IN THE ORDINARY TIME YEAR A, BY REV FR EKESHIRI JUDE EMEKA CSSP. THEME: THE PERFECT LOVE OF GOD AND NEIGHBOURS (1 Timothy 2:8-15,Psalm 24:4-5ab, 8-9,10, 14,Mark 12:28-34)
Love is central to all Jesus’s teachings. Everything Jesus teaches, always points towards love and it is either expressing the Father’s love for us, Jesus’s love for us and our love for ourselves. Laws are important, but, if it does not gear towards love for humanity, it is an unjust law. Jesus made this known today by summarising the law into a love affair of God and humanity.
In today’s Gospel, a scribe asks Jesus a very important question, he says “Which commandment is the first of all?” and Jesus replied saying, “ You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. And the second is this, you must love your neighbour as yourself. There is no commandments that is greater as these” (Mark 12:28-34).
This is just the summary of the law and the prophet. Jesus did not want to give us too much law as the scribes and the Pharisees do. He summarises the law into two, love of God and love for humanity.
This question of the scribes, reflects a desire to understand what lies at the heart of our faith and what truly matters above everything else.
Jesus’ answer makes it clearer, that, the essence of the law and the prophets boils down to love, which is, love of God and love of neighbor. Loving God “with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength” means giving God our whole being our emotions, desires, intellect, and energy. It’s a call for total dedication, not just outward obedience.
But Jesus does not stop with love of God. He immediately adds that love of neighbor is inseparable from love of God. To truly love God, we must also love those around us. We need to love God, wholeheartedly. Loving God wholeheartedly means that, we need to place God as our first priority above anything else.
Loving God means also, loving all that God has created including our fellow human beings. We cannot say we love God that we cannot see physically and hate those we can see around us. Love of God, goes hand in hand with the love of our neighbours.
Let us ask ourselves today, where do I stand in loving God and in loving my neighbours? Do I pretend to love them, whereas my heart is full of hatred and malice? Today, let us learn to love genuinely and pray for God’s grace to make us see God in all we come in contact with, so that we could express our love to them genuinely . Peace be with you.