Sometimes in
life, we might be presented with a task to complete or a problem to
solve or to deal with. When we first look at that task or problem
and begin to size it up and figure out what we need to do in order to
finish the job we might feel a bit overwhelmed. We may think that it
is going to take a great deal of work in order to finish. We might
think we need to pull together a great number of resources of one
type or another in order to finish what we plan to do. The whole
thing might even strike us as being impossible to complete all on our
own. But once we begin to do the work and try different things out
we discover, either for ourselves or with the help of another person,
that the solution is nothing all that new or difficult, but really
quite simple and obvious once we know what to look for. The once
complicated or impossible problem becomes a straightforward and
manageable task.
I can
remember how in elementary school, I struggled with how to solve long
multiplication and division problems and complicated word problems
that I would get as homework. The problems and should have been
pretty straightforward and I should have been able to work through
the process to the solution fairly quickly. As the math problems got
more and more difficult, I would get more confused. I would add or
subtract where I didn't need to or I would forget to carry a number.
Word problems were a complete mess for me as I would attempt to do
steps that were really unnecessary for that problem. With help from
teachers and my parents I eventually realized that I was making the
problems more difficult than they really were. I needed to slow down
and that would help me not get confused and I was able to see that
the solution was much simpler and easier than I thought at first.
Once I did that I became much better at math in my high school years.
I used my
struggle with arithmetic as an example, but I hope that we can all
see it as symbolic of tasks and problems that we have in our day to
day lives. In spite of so many complicated things in this world from
complicated jobs to complicated instructions on electronics to
complicated relationships, there are still some things that are
actually quite simple.
A great
example of this can be found in our Gospel reading for today. A
scholar of the law asks Jesus, “Which commandment in the law is the
greatest?” For the Pharisees, all of the laws and commandments
needed to be followed. The scholar isn't trying to say that one is
greatest and the rest are not important. It was popular for the
Pharisees to try to find ways to summarize the law and the faith in
one or two sentences. So, the scholar is asking, “Is there a
commandment that is so great that it summarizes all the rest of the
commandments?” It's similar to if we asked an employer about a
job description and he or she gave us a nice one or two sentence
explanation of the job. The job itself might include other odd tasks
and duties, but that short description gives an overall gist of what
the job consists of.
Jesus not
only summarizes the law of the Old Testament, but one could also
argue that He summarizes the whole of Sacred Scripture. He does this
by quoting two important laws that can be found in the Old Testament.
“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart,
with all your soul, and with all your mind,” can be found in the
Book of Deuteronomy. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”
is from the Book of Leviticus. It's not that hard to see how all the
laws depend on and are based off of these two commandments. When we
look at the Ten Commandments and the other laws throughout the Old
Testament, we can see that they are either based on honoring and
loving the Lord, your God, or honoring and loving other people around
you. So both of these make a very good summary of what God wants us
to do.
Sometimes Catholics are criticized for having too
many rules, and that these rules can get too difficult to follow.
But this reading about “The Greatest Commandment” helps show that
all those rules and precepts and encyclicals and Apostolic
Exhortations that the Church has are really all based on those two
commandments to love God and neighbor. Is just as simple as that:
love. Going back to my original point, when we look at all the
commandments of the Scriptures and all the rules found in the
Catechism, we are essentially overwhelming ourselves thinking that we
have all these rules that we have to follow. We worry about whether
we will be good enough to enter into heaven and we might even despair
of ever getting in. If we simply slow down and think about what
those rules are really saying, we can see that it simply means that
we must love.
When I first read this Gospel reading early this
past week I first noticed that the message and overall theme was
pretty straightforward. However, I struggled for most of the week
trying to figure out how best to present this theme in a homily.
This reading doesn't take a whole lot of explanation. Jesus tells us
to love God and neighbor: now go out and do it. I kept thinking
there has to be something more I need to talk about with this
reading, but I realized I was making it too complicated. God wants
us to love Him and each other. It's as simple as that. All the
other stuff in the Church teaches us and guides us to that idea of
love.
Back in 2013 when Pope Francis was elected as our
current Pope, there was a flood of images posted on the Internet by
Catholics talking about him. Some people were (and still are) of the
impression that Pope Francis was changing the teachings of the
Church. Many of those images responded to those claims and attempted
to show how the Pope was following what had always been taught, just
saying it in a new way. One of those postings showed picture of our
two previous Popes and our current one. Under St. John Paul II it
said, “This is what we believe”. Under Benedict XVI it said,
“This is why we believe it”. Under Francis it said, “Now go do
it”. Our faith has taught us how to love. Let's go do it.
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