31st Sunday in Ordinary Time 2024
Deuteronomy 6:2-6 Hebrews 7:23-28 Mark 12:28-34
The Gospel Readings for the past seven Sundays have recounted the Journey of Jesus and his disciples on their way up to Jerusalem. On the journey Jesus instructed his disciples on what it means to be a disciple. Now, they are in Jerusalem and the atmosphere is very hostile and the disciples were faced with the difficulties that the learned Scribes presented to Jesus. Though other evangelists present one of the scribes as setting a trap for Jesus, Mark portrays him as being genuinely in search of the truth. He asks Jesus ‘Which is the first of all the commandments?’ Of course, this Scribe like all other serious Jews knew well the commandments given by Moses in the Book of Deuteronomy (today’s 1st Reading). Jesus had no hesitation in answering and even began his answer by using the opening of the morning-prayer used by all pious Jews – ‘Listen, Israel!’ Then Jesus he repeated what every one of the chosen people prayed ‘The Lord your God is the one Lord, and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and all your strength’. And then very quickly Jesus quotes from the Book of Leviticus; ‘The second is this: you must love your neighbour as yourself.’ In the mind of Jesus, Love came first – before the Law and before Sacrifices and worship. But, Love of yourself?! Jesus was a sound psychologist! He set the standard of loving neighbour to be similar to loving oneself.
We all know that if we don’t love ourselves then we won’t easily be able to apply the ‘law’ of love of our neighbour. It all begins with being able to appreciate our creation by God and God’s choice of each one of us as precious in God’s eyes. In the Psalm 138 we pray ‘I thank you, Lord, for the wonder of my being’. But we do not contemplate that wonder often enough.
When people talk about their spiritual lives and their relationship with God they very often concentrate on the failures, the shortcomings, the inadequacies and the sins. We seem to be able to move more easily into guilt-trip mode than to notice the goodness in ourselves. Saint Bernard describes the spiritual journey as being made up of four stages. The journey begins by loving one’s own soul, one’s own self. That implies that you want the best for your soul, you aspire to heaven and consequently, fear hell. The spiritual journey continues as one begins to love justice. This means that you will want to do right, to fulfill your duties and cope with the trials that come your way.
With the third stage of the spiritual journey one becomes a friend of Wisdom. You do all you can to please God, so that God will be content with us and our lives. The fourth and final stage of the spiritual journey goes beyond oneself. Now, you no longer act so that God should be pleased with you, but because YOU are pleased with God.
This may, at first, seem pretentious. But being pleased with God suggests that we can, at last appreciate how God is present in our world, what God does in our lives and how easily we can relate to our God. If we are beings, who live our lives in that context, then surely we are blessed, happy and loveable – loved by God, by others and by self. I am such a being as is everyone created and loved by the same God.