Ad Jesum per Mariam

Jesus tells us to Love Your Lord God . . . & Love Your Neighbor. What Does That Really Mean for Us?

Jesus tells us to Love your Lord God with all Your Heart, Soul and Mind . . . and Love Your Neighbor. What Does That Really Mean for Us? As you may know, many of the Shrine’s Masses are outdoors. After a bit of humor, the priest tells a story when he was based in Rome, he would hear a priest at a parish near his lodging always sing a Latin verse. It translates into English: I Believe In One God! When asks why he sings this verse at each Mass, the answer was the entire bible, and all of scripture stands upon this foundation. It is the foundation of faith. I Believe In One God! God Alone In today’s first reading, Moses speaks to Israel. Moses says: Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone! These words were kept on the wrists of people of Israel to remind them of God Alone. No kingdom, no king is God. No man is God. This was part of Moses command to Israel. It is also the foundation of Christian Faith. However, humans create there own “gods”. Hear more in the Gospel. Moses tells Israel do not place anything else before God. Love your Lord God with all your heart. Then Gospel tells us something similar What does that really mean? Listen to this Meditation Media. Listen to: Jesus tells us to Love your Lord God with all Your Heart, Soul and Mind . . . and Love Your Neighbor. What Does That Really Mean for Us? ------------------------------------ Image: Jesus Christ: German Artist and Painter: Heinrich Hoffman: 1894 Oil painting currently resides in The Riverside Church, New York City. ------------------------------------ Gospel Reading: Mark: 12: 28-34 First Reading: DT 6: 2-6 Second Reading: HEB 7: 23-28

Duration:: 14m
Broadcast on:: 04 Nov 2024
Audio Format:: other

# The Lord be with you # # And with your spirit # # Everything from the Holy Gospel # # According to my heart # # Glory to you, O Lord # # One of the scribes come to Jesus and ask to him # # Which is the first of all the commandments? # # Jesus replied, "This is the first. # # Here, O Israel, # # The Lord, our God, # # Is Lord alone. # # You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, # # With all your soul, with all your mind, # # And with all your strength. # # The second is this. # # You shall love your neighbor as yourself. # # There is no other commandment greater than these. # # The scribe said to him, well said teacher, # # You are right in saying, 'He is one, and there is no other than he.' # # And to love him with all your heart, # # With all your understanding, with all your strength, # # And to love your neighbor as yourself. # # Is worth more than all bent offerings and sacrifices. # # And when Jesus saw that he answered with understanding, he said to him, # # You are not far from the kingdom of God. # # And no one dared to ask him any more questions. # # There gospel of the Lord. # # Rest to you, Lord Jesus Christ. # I feel it is very cold. I can see the blankets around. For that reason, I will spare you. My homie will only be one hour long, so don't worry. The past six years, I worked in Rome. And my room was directly looking at the Church of St. Louis Maria de Montfort, a parish run by the Montfort missionaries. And at 11 o'clock every Sunday, the parish priest, that was his mass, that he is celebrated by all means at 11. And when it came, every time when I would go to the morning mass and then come back to my room, and at 11, I would hear him that he has finished his homie, and once he finishes his homie, he started with it. # Kredo in diyum diyum. # That was it. I believe in one God. He made sure he began that one. Kredo in unum diyum. I believe in one God. So one day I asked him, but why you have to start that song every time? He says, it's because it's the whole Scripture. The whole Bible stands on those few words that I say. The faith stands on those few words that I begin with. It's the foundation of my faith. It's the foundation of the Scriptures. I believe in one God. The same what we read in the Scriptures today, especially the first reading, Moses is speaking to Israel. Listen, Israel. The Lord God is one. The Lord God is one God. The Lord God is God alone. And those words could be taken, put in a box, small boxes, and they tied even the Pharisees tied them on the forehead to remind them that the Lord God is God alone. They wore them on their wrists as a reminder that they see only one God. And he is Yahweh. And everything followed upon that. What that meant was that nothing under sun is God. No human being is a God because no kingdom is God. No country is God. No king is God. It is him alone, and he listened to him. That was the command of Moses to Israel. I think that's really the foundation of how Scripture is the foundation of all faith, the Christian faith, that God is God alone. But as human beings, as we live by, we begin to create different gods for ourselves. Human beings begin to be looked upon as gods. Kingdoms begin to be looked upon as the foundation of everything. There's enough, in our times, politicians become demigods. But the truth is that God is one, is the Lord. And when Moses says to Israel, "Do not make anything else come before God." Once you have the right order that you have first of all listened to God, everything will fall in place because everything comes from God and it goes back to God. And then the second command he gives him says, "Love the Lord your God with your heart." Which means love God with all the emotional life, with all your emotional life, with all that is within you. Love God, first. Secondary with your soul, that which makes you you, must be given to God, must be used to love God. With all your strength, with all power, with everything that makes us, us love God. This is the commandment that he Moses gives to Israel. And then we hear, in the gospel, a Pharisee comes a scribe, comes to Jesus and asks him, which one is the first commandment. You hear what Jesus answers, he doesn't repeat what Moses said. Moses had said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with your strength." And Jesus adds, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind." That is with all your understanding. And then, takes another part from another scripture, from the Book of Leviticus and adds it there to say, "And love your neighbor as yourself." These two commandments are the whole law. See that the second commandment depends on the first commandment. If you love your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, then your heart is ordered to love the other person in a correct manner. But if there is no love of God, first of all, you cannot love the neighbor in an ordered manner. Your love for neighbor will be a self-interested love. I usually, when I prepare people for marriage, people who have loved one another and they are bringing one another to church, I always say to them, "If your love between you and your wife and your husband has no third other, the other who become the first object whom both of you are going to love first. And then after loving him, you love one another, your marriage will not last because once you love God first, it orders your love for any other person. You will not use the other person for your ends. You will not find another person as a means, but as a response to the fact that you have loved God." I usually tell the story of one of my experience with the nephew of mine, how we human beings sometimes can act as children and love other people because they love us back, because they give us something back, but love is to love without expecting something in return. I usually tell the story of my nephew who the mother gave some candies and then he was very happy. I asked him, "Part, why are you happy?" "Oh, Mom gave me candy." He then, a few minutes later, the mother scotted him and then he comes out crying. His father who was sitting next to me asked him, "Part, why are you crying? Is it not your wife who scotted me?" When he is given the candy is my mother, when his scotted is the wife of the father, unless we begin to love God and then we can love others orderly, because no human being is a God, no nation is a God, no politician is a God, first love God and then love your non-politicians, love your nation, love your neighbors.