The Lord spoke to Moses and said, "Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus You shall bless the Israelites: you shall say to them: May the Lord bless you And keep you. May the Lord make his face shine for you And give you grace. The Lord turn his face to you And grant you peace. Thus shall they put my name upon the Israelites, and I will bless them." Let us bring this blessing to every person who lives in the lands of conflict or is affected by them in the decisions to be made, the choices to be made for them, so that hearts may find Peace and resume peaceful living with constructive relationships of dialogue and Peace.
In today’s Gospel passage (cf. Mt 22:34-40), a doctor of the Law asks Jesus “which is the great commandment” (v. 36), that is, the principal commandment of all divine Law. Jesus simply answers: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (v. 37). And he immediately adds: “And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (v. 39).
Jesus’ response once again takes up and joins two fundamental precepts, which God gave his people through Moses (cf. Dt 6:5; Lv 19:18). And thus he overcomes the snare that is laid for him in order “to test him” (Mt 22:35). His questioner, in fact, tries to draw him into the dispute among the experts of the Law regarding the hierarchy of the prescriptions. But Jesus establishes two essential principles for believers of all times; two essential principles of our life. The first is that moral and religious life cannot be reduced to an anxious and forced obedience. There are people who seek to fulfil the commandments in an anxious or forced manner, and Jesus helps us understand that moral and religious life cannot be reduced to anxious or forced obedience, but must have love as its precept. The second principle is that love must tend together and inseparably toward God and toward neighbour. This is one of the primary innovations of Jesus’ teachings, and it helps us understand that what is not expressed in love of neighbour is not true love of God; and, likewise, what is not drawn from one’s relationship with God is not true love of neighbour.
Jesus concludes his response with these words: “On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets” (v. 40). This means that all the precepts the Lord has given to his people must be related to love of God and neighbour. In fact, all the commandments serve to implement, to express that twofold indivisible love. Love for God is expressed above all in prayer, particularly in adoration. We neglect the adoration of God a great deal. We recite the prayer of thanksgiving, the supplication to ask for something..., but we neglect adoration. Adoring God is precisely the heart of prayer. And love for neighbour, which is also called fraternal charity, consists in closeness, listening, sharing, caring for others. And so often we neglect to listen to others because it is boring or because it takes up our time, or [we neglect] to accompany them, to support them in their suffering, in their trials.... But we always find the time to gossip, always! We do not have time to console the afflicted, but so much time to gossip. Be careful!
The Apostle John writes: “he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen ” (1 Jn 4:20). Thus, we see the unity of these two commandments.
In today’s Gospel passage, once again, Jesus helps us go to the living and gushing wellspring of Love. And this wellspring is God himself, to be loved completely in a communion that nothing and no one can break. A communion that is a gift to be requested each day, but also a personal commitment not to let our lives become enslaved by the idols of the world. And the proof of our journey of conversion and holiness always consists in love of neighbour. This is the test: if I say “I love God” and do not love my neighbour, it does not work. The verification that I love God is that I love my neighbour. As long as there is a brother or sister to whom we close our hearts, we will still be far from being disciples as Jesus asks us. But his divine mercy does not allow us to be discouraged, but rather calls us to begin anew each day to live the Gospel consistently.
May the intercession of Mary Most Holy open our hearts to welcome the “great commandment”, the twofold commandment of love, which contains all of God’s Law and on which our salvation depends.
FAUSTI - "You will love" God is Love, and He commands us to love. To co-mmand means to send together: God sends us together towards love, so that His Life may also become ours. Love, in fact, makes one's life become the life of the other. The desire to be like God is not fulfilled by having everything in one's hands, but by putting oneself in the hands of the Father and one's brothers and sisters, for love! In love there is no good and evil, there is only good! God cannot be grasped with the mind or hands, but "understand, contain" in the heart. To love is to have the other in the heart. We are made to love, because God made us in His image and likeness. To know serves to love: one does not love except what one knows. And to love in turn serves to understand: one does not understand anything except what one loves. Love and intellect are mutually nourished: it is the dynamic tension proper to love, in an endless virtuous circle. Love concerns not only the heart and mind, but also life. Love is above all joy of the heart for the good of the other (the opposite is envy): it is expressed with the mouth as praise (the opposite is criticism), and is realized with the hands, placed at the service of the other as well as of myself. It manifests itself more in deeds than in words. Let us love one another not with words, but with deeds and in truth (1Jn 3:18). Love leads one to communicate what one has and is, until the union of intellect, will and action. Diversity and limitations -even negative ones- are not a place of concealment and aggression, perpetrated or suffered, but of acceptance and mutual service. The command is twofold: Loving God and neighbor, because only by loving the Father and brothers and sisters we become what we are: children. In this way we reach our identity, healing the original break with the Other, with ourselves and with others. Jesus is the Lord who makes Himself my neighbor and loves me with all His heart, so that I can do the same. With the same love I love Him and my brother, because He became my brother; I love God and man because God became man! For every time I love the last of my brothers, I love Him (Mt25) who became the last of all. Mutual love is the badge of the Christian. "By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another (Jn 13:35). Jesus is the most beautiful Name, as Paul says, "the Name above all other Names, and in His Name let every knee bend in heaven, on earth and under the ground, and let every tongue proclaim that Jesus is Lord, to the Glory of the Father" (Eph 2:9-1). And we ask Jesus to give us His own Love for the Father, to love Him as He does, with all the heart, with all the mind, with all the strength! I ask Jesus for forgiveness for having sometimes forgotten to be always loved by the Father, in any trial, suffering, humiliation. Always and everywhere the Father is Love, only Love, for everyone. Only Jesus has glorified the Father in total obedience, and I, rebellious and inconstant, still do not know how to trust Him totally, and I desire to defend myself, to make myself right. Only Jesus loved me at all costs, He gave His Life, He conquered my darkness. To the Lord only Glory, Trust, Praise, Adoration, Blessing! He is Our Creator, the Lord, He alone is healing, He alone is embrace, He alone is the total gift without measure of the Spirit! (Jn 3:34) And for every pain, let us invoke Him, let us contemplate His wounds, His Cross, The Love that conquered the world... Let us look at the great trial we are living, He is present, as He promised us and we entrust ourselves to Him, the Living One forever, and we are children with Him. And with Him we love the Father, we invoke Him, to the Father only our hands raised, Our "Thy Will be done" and "Thy Kingdom come". The Father knows what we need! As children we ask with confidence! And not only for us, but for the brothers and sisters we love as ourselves, purified by His forgiveness, we ask for everyone, for every pain, for every need, for every sigh!
Nm 6:22-27
RispondiEliminaThe Lord spoke to Moses and said, "Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus
You shall bless the Israelites: you shall say to them:
May the Lord bless you
And keep you.
May the Lord make his face shine for you
And give you grace.
The Lord turn his face to you
And grant you peace.
Thus shall they put my name upon the Israelites, and I will bless them."
Let us bring this blessing to every person who lives in the lands of conflict or is affected by them in the decisions to be made, the choices to be made for them, so that hearts may find Peace and resume peaceful living with constructive relationships of dialogue and Peace.
POPE FRANCIS
RispondiEliminaANGELUS
Saint Peter's Square
Sunday, 25 October 2020
[Multimedia]
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Good morning!
In today’s Gospel passage (cf. Mt 22:34-40), a doctor of the Law asks Jesus “which is the great commandment” (v. 36), that is, the principal commandment of all divine Law. Jesus simply answers: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (v. 37). And he immediately adds: “And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (v. 39).
Jesus’ response once again takes up and joins two fundamental precepts, which God gave his people through Moses (cf. Dt 6:5; Lv 19:18). And thus he overcomes the snare that is laid for him in order “to test him” (Mt 22:35). His questioner, in fact, tries to draw him into the dispute among the experts of the Law regarding the hierarchy of the prescriptions. But Jesus establishes two essential principles for believers of all times; two essential principles of our life. The first is that moral and religious life cannot be reduced to an anxious and forced obedience. There are people who seek to fulfil the commandments in an anxious or forced manner, and Jesus helps us understand that moral and religious life cannot be reduced to anxious or forced obedience, but must have love as its precept. The second principle is that love must tend together and inseparably toward God and toward neighbour. This is one of the primary innovations of Jesus’ teachings, and it helps us understand that what is not expressed in love of neighbour is not true love of God; and, likewise, what is not drawn from one’s relationship with God is not true love of neighbour.
Jesus concludes his response with these words: “On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets” (v. 40). This means that all the precepts the Lord has given to his people must be related to love of God and neighbour. In fact, all the commandments serve to implement, to express that twofold indivisible love. Love for God is expressed above all in prayer, particularly in adoration. We neglect the adoration of God a great deal. We recite the prayer of thanksgiving, the supplication to ask for something..., but we neglect adoration. Adoring God is precisely the heart of prayer. And love for neighbour, which is also called fraternal charity, consists in closeness, listening, sharing, caring for others. And so often we neglect to listen to others because it is boring or because it takes up our time, or [we neglect] to accompany them, to support them in their suffering, in their trials.... But we always find the time to gossip, always! We do not have time to console the afflicted, but so much time to gossip. Be careful!
The Apostle John writes: “he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen ” (1 Jn 4:20). Thus, we see the unity of these two commandments.
In today’s Gospel passage, once again, Jesus helps us go to the living and gushing wellspring of Love. And this wellspring is God himself, to be loved completely in a communion that nothing and no one can break. A communion that is a gift to be requested each day, but also a personal commitment not to let our lives become enslaved by the idols of the world. And the proof of our journey of conversion and holiness always consists in love of neighbour. This is the test: if I say “I love God” and do not love my neighbour, it does not work. The verification that I love God is that I love my neighbour. As long as there is a brother or sister to whom we close our hearts, we will still be far from being disciples as Jesus asks us. But his divine mercy does not allow us to be discouraged, but rather calls us to begin anew each day to live the Gospel consistently.
May the intercession of Mary Most Holy open our hearts to welcome the “great commandment”, the twofold commandment of love, which contains all of God’s Law and on which our salvation depends.
FAUSTI - "You will love" God is Love, and He commands us to love. To co-mmand means to send together: God sends us together towards love, so that His Life may also become ours. Love, in fact, makes one's life become the life of the other.
RispondiEliminaThe desire to be like God is not fulfilled by having everything in one's hands, but by putting oneself in the hands of the Father and one's brothers and sisters, for love! In love there is no good and evil, there is only good! God cannot be grasped with the mind or hands, but "understand, contain" in the heart. To love is to have the other in the heart. We are made to love, because God made us in His image and likeness. To know serves to love: one does not love except what one knows. And to love in turn serves to understand: one does not understand anything except what one loves. Love and intellect are mutually nourished: it is the dynamic tension proper to love, in an endless virtuous circle.
Love concerns not only the heart and mind, but also life. Love is above all joy of the heart
for the good of the other (the opposite is envy): it is expressed with the mouth as praise (the opposite is criticism), and is realized with the hands, placed at the service of the other as well as of myself. It manifests itself more in deeds than in words. Let us love one another not with words, but with deeds and in truth (1Jn 3:18).
Love leads one to communicate what one has and is, until the union of intellect, will and action.
Diversity and limitations -even negative ones- are not a place of concealment and aggression, perpetrated or suffered, but of acceptance and mutual service.
The command is twofold: Loving God and neighbor, because only by loving the Father and brothers and sisters we become what we are: children. In this way we reach our identity, healing the original break with the Other, with ourselves and with others.
Jesus is the Lord who makes Himself my neighbor and loves me with all His heart, so that I can do the same. With the same love I love Him and my brother, because He became my brother; I love God and man because God became man!
For every time I love the last of my brothers, I love Him (Mt25) who became the last of all.
Mutual love is the badge of the Christian. "By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another (Jn 13:35).
Jesus is the most beautiful Name, as Paul says, "the Name above all other Names, and in His Name let every knee bend in heaven, on earth and under the ground, and let every tongue proclaim that Jesus is Lord, to the Glory of the Father" (Eph 2:9-1). And we ask Jesus to give us His own Love for the Father, to love Him as He does, with all the heart, with all the mind, with all the strength!
I ask Jesus for forgiveness for having sometimes forgotten to be always loved by the Father, in any trial, suffering, humiliation. Always and everywhere the Father is Love, only Love, for everyone.
Only Jesus has glorified the Father in total obedience, and I, rebellious and inconstant, still do not know how to trust Him totally, and I desire to defend myself, to make myself right.
Only Jesus loved me at all costs, He gave His Life, He conquered my darkness.
To the Lord only Glory, Trust, Praise, Adoration, Blessing! He is Our Creator, the Lord, He alone is healing, He alone is embrace, He alone is the total gift without measure of the Spirit! (Jn 3:34)
And for every pain, let us invoke Him, let us contemplate His wounds, His Cross, The Love that conquered the world...
Let us look at the great trial we are living, He is present, as He promised us and we entrust ourselves to Him, the Living One forever, and we are children with Him.
And with Him we love the Father, we invoke Him, to the Father only our hands raised, Our "Thy Will be done" and "Thy Kingdom come". The Father knows what we need! As children we ask with confidence! And not only for us, but for the brothers and sisters we love as ourselves, purified by His forgiveness, we ask for everyone, for every pain, for every need, for every sigh!