The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today invite us to contemplate the role of the Spirit in guiding our observance of the Commandment to Love God and neighbour.
Live the Great Commandment
The reading from the Prophet Ezekiel describes the vision in the valley of Dry Bones.
* [37:1–14] This account is a figurative description of God’s creation of a new Israel. Even though that creation begins with the remains of the old Israel, the exiles under the image of dry bones, depicting a totally hopeless situation, the new Israel is radically different: it is an ideal people, shaped by God’s spirit to live the covenant faithfully, something the old Israel, exiles included, were unable to do. While this passage in its present context is not about the doctrine of individual or communal resurrection, many Jewish and Christian commentators suggest that the doctrine is foreshadowed here.1
Psalm 107 is a Thanksgiving for deliverance from many troubles.
* [Psalm 107] A hymn inviting those who have been rescued by God to give praise (Ps 107:1–3). Four archetypal divine rescues are described, each ending in thanksgiving: from the sterile desert (Ps 107:4–9), from imprisonment in gloom (Ps 107:10–16), from mortal illness (Ps 107:17–22), and from the angry sea (Ps 107:23–32). The number four connotes totality, all the possible varieties of rescue. The same saving activity of God is shown in Israel’s history (Ps 107:33–41); whenever the people were endangered God rescued them. The last verses invite people to ponder the persistent saving acts of God (Ps 107:42–43).2
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus declares the Greatest Commandment.
* [22:39] Jesus goes beyond the extent of the question put to him and joins to the greatest and the first commandment a second, that of love of neighbor, Lv 19:18; see note on Mt 19:18–19. This combination of the two commandments may already have been made in Judaism.3
Chas Kestermeier, S.J. asserts that we simply have to trust God, absolutely and in every situation; we have to practice the cardinal virtue of hope.
The related problem is that such an answer seems too simple, that God must be held accountable for an illogical and absurd world (to use the term of the existentialist philosophers), one in which the innocent and the powerless die and the evil prosper.
In the end it all comes down to one simple fact: God is God and we are not. If all His actions, every way that He interacts with us, could be explained logically and be beyond reproach He would be only human. God, by His very nature, is beyond our understanding and is only truly satisfying to us as God, if He surpasses us and is so different than our flawed humanity that He is and always will be mystery. Any other God, no matter how wise, loving, or attractive, is simply not big enough to answer our longing or to deserve our complete and constant adherence.4
Don Schwager quotes “Loving God with heart, mind, and soul,” by Origen of Alexandria (185-254 AD).
"Worthy is he, confirmed in all his gifts, who exults in the wisdom of God, having a heart full of the love of God, and a soul completely enlightened by the lamp of knowledge and a mind filled with the word of God. It follows then that all such gifts truly come from God. He would understand that all the law and the prophets are in some way a part of the wisdom and knowledge of God. He would understand that all the law and the prophets depend upon and adhere to the principle of the love of the Lord God and of neighbor and that the perfection of piety consists in love." (excerpt from COMMENTARY ON MATTHEW 13)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Matthew 22:34-40 comments that Jesus told them that the Law and the prophets “depend on”—or “hang on”—love (Matthew 22:40). Love of God and love of neighbor was the test they should use to measure how well they were following the Lord. It was also the test they should use in evaluating the way they were following the Law of Moses. Without love, their adherence to that law could not bring them life.
And the next time you face a decision about how to use your time, what to tackle next, or how to adjust to an unexpected disruption in your plans, revisit this central question: “How can I love God or my neighbor better right now?”
“Lord, I want to love you with all my heart, my soul, and my mind. I want to love my neighbor as much as you love me!”6
Friar Jude Winkler connects Zoroasterian burial practice to the text in Ezekiel. He finds contemporary texts on individual resurrection in Job, Isaiah, and some Psalms. Friar Jude reminds us every good action depends on Love of God and neighbour.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, comments this journey from Order to Disorder must happen for all of us. It is not something just to be admired in Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Job, or Jesus. Our role is to listen and allow, and at least slightly cooperate with this almost natural progression. We all come to wisdom at the major price of both our innocence and our control. Few of us go there willingly; it must normally be thrust upon us. However, we must be wary of staying in Disorder for too long.
Everyone gets tired of critique after a while. We cannot build on exclusively negative or critical energy. We can only build on life and what we are for, not what we are against. Negativity keeps us in a state of victimhood and/or a state of anger. Mere critique and analysis are not salvation; they are not liberation, nor are they spacious. They are not wonderful at all. We only become enlightened as the ego dies to its pretenses, and we begin to be led by soul and Spirit. That dying to ourselves is something we are led through by the grace of God. When we move into the Larger Realm of Reorder, we will weep over our sins, as we recognize that we are everything that we hate and attack in other people. Then we begin to live the great mystery of compassion.7
Wisdom that is born of the Spirit of Love is one fruit of the diminished role of ego in our lives.
References
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