The central theme of today’s readings is the greatest Commandment in the Bible, namely, to respond to God’s Infinite Love for us by loving Him, and to express that love in action by loving Him in our neighbor.  The first reading, taken from Exodus, explains the different expressions of the love of one’s neighbor, especially of the underprivileged. Today’s Responsorial Psalm (Ps 18) is our hymn of loving trust in God Who loves us and gives us everything so that we can give it all back to Him in loving His children. So, we sing, “I love You. O Lord, my Strength, O Lord, my Rock, my Fortress, my Deliverer!”   In the second reading, St. Paul praises the Thessalonian Christians for the heroic witness they have borne to Christ   by their loving reception of Him through Paul’s message which has resulted in their model practicing of mutual love. In the Gospel today, Jesus combines the commandment to love God with the commandment to love one’s neighbor and gives the result as the one Commandment of supreme importance in Christian life.

The first reading, taken from Exodus explains the second greatest commandment, namely, loving one’s neighbors as one loves oneself, especially the underprivileged. The chosen people of Israel should remember that once they were aliens in the land of Egypt. Just as God protected them and treated them kindly, so they are to protect others and treat them with kindness. Thus, they should become a humane society rooted in the basic religious concept of loving God living in their neighbor.

First reading (Ex 22:20-26) explained: The Cyrus mentioned here is Cyrus II, the Great, who founded the Persian Empire. In 539 B.C., he conquered the Babylonians who had defeated the Jews 50 years earlier and had taken many of them into captivity. He decided to liberate the Jews from their exile and allow them to go back to their home country, Judea. In this passage, the prophet Isaiah declares that Cyrus, even though a pagan, was God’s instrument.  The amazing fact is that God actually used Cyrus to restore His people to their homeland.  

God is able and willing to use ungodly powers to achieve His ends because He is the God not only of the Jews, but of history and of the whole world. Hence, He anointed Cyrus as a savior of His people.  Cyrus carried out God’s plan by setting the Jewish exiles free and giving them permission to go back to Judah to rebuild their Temple and city.  He also   returned to them the gold and silver vessels which Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the Temple.  And that is how a pagan emperor became, in God’s hand, the instrument by means of whom the people of Israel might return to their Promised Land. 

This passage also contains a new theological idea.  To call this pagan king, “Messiah” or “Christos” meaning “the Lord’s anointed” (a title given exclusively to the kings, prophets and priests of the Chosen People), was quite revolutionary.  Like other passages from Isaiah, it was meant to challenge the Jews’ parochialism and give them a more universal view of God’s concern and plan.

In the second reading, St. Paul congratulates the Thessalonians on the positive effects of their example of loving one another as Jesus had commanded them to do. Their mutual love and their loving reception of Paul and response to his preaching, he tells them, has bolstered the Faith of Christians elsewhere who have heard about them.

The Second Reading, 1 Thessalonians 1:1-5 explained: Bible scholars believe that this letter, addressed to the new Jewish and the Gentile Christians of northern Greece (Thessalonica), is the earliest document of the whole New Testament, written in Corinth in A.D. 50. There was more Faith, Hope, and Charity among the Thessalonians than Paul could credit to his own preaching; the Holy Spirit was clearly at work.  Along with 1 Thes 5:8, this is the earliest mention in Christian literature of the three “theological virtues” (see 1 Cor 13:13). From today’s text it is clear that these people worked hard at being Christians, and that Saint Paul thought that praiseworthy.  Hence, he praised his converts for their fidelity to God and to Christ, assuring them of his prayers.  He hoped that they would continue to be faithful to the call God had given them, a call proved by the many gifts of the Holy Spirit bestowed on them. 

In the Gospel today, Jesus combines the commandment to love God with the commandment to love one’s neighbor and gives the result as the one Commandment of supreme importance in Christian life. Jesus underlines the principle that we are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves because, as God’s children, both of us bear God’s image, and to honor God’s image is to honor Him. Love for our neighbor should not be a matter of feelings, but of deeds by which we share with others the unmerited love that God lavishes on us.

Gospel exegesis: The context: A Pharisee, who believed in both the written Law and the oral tradition, seeing how Jesus had defeated the Sadducee who had tried to humiliate Him with the hypothetical case of a woman who married seven husbands, asked Jesus to summarize the most important of the Mosaic Laws in one sentence.  This was a challenge because, in the Judaism of Jesus’ day, there was a double tendency to expand the Mosaic Law into hundreds of rules and regulations and to condense the 613 precepts of the Torah into a single sentence or few sentences. [The Phariseesthemselves identified 613 commandments in the Torah (the first five books of the Bible). Two hundred forty-eight were positive (“thou shalt”) and three hundred sixty-five were negative (“thou shalt not”). Summarizing the Law, King David proposed eleven (Ps 15), Isaiah six (33:15), Micah three (6:8), and Amos only one (5:4). From the Commandments that deal with “loving our neighbor,” the Jewish scholars of the law produced 14 particular commandments about business practices, 19 about employees, servants and slaves, 36 about courts and judicial procedure, eleven about property rights, seven about criminal law, and 24 about punishment and restitution.  Yet that doesn’t exhaust the commands to “love our neighbor”!  When you turn to “loving God”, the lists of commandments are even longer, including 33 about the Temple and sacred objects, 46 about idolatry, and 102 about sacrifices and offerings!  With 613 commandments, it was easy for the average Jew to lose focus.  Jesus wanted to bring a focus to God’s command to love Him first and foremost.] Jesus’ answer teaches us that the most important commandment is to love God with all our hearts, souls, minds and strength, in Himself and in all His children, our neighbors. In other words, we are to love God and express our love by loving our neighbor because God lives in him or her. Some Bible scholars think that the original question was a trap question because the Pharisees believed that all of the 613 commands (mitzot) in the Torah were equally important and necessary to obey. Therefore, they were trying to corner Jesus into showing either ignorance about the Law, or disrespect for parts of it by choosing one command over the others.

Jesus’ contribution: Jesus gave the Pharisee a straightforward answer, quoting directly from the Law itself, startling his listeners with his profound simplicity and mastery of the Law of God and its purpose. Jesus’ answer was very orthodox, and very traditional. (“The summary of the law is not original with Jesus. Its two parts represent a combination of Dt 6:5 and Lev 19:18. Nor is the combination itself original to Jesus, for it is found in at least one earlier Jewish work, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, an amalgam of wisdom and apocalyptic materials.” Reginald H. Fuller).  Jesus citedthe first sentence of the Jewish Shema prayer: … “Therefore, you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength” (Dt 6:5).  Then He added its complementary law: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lv 19:18).  Finally, He declared that the “whole Law and the prophets” depended on the commands to love God “with all your heart, with all your soul and all your mind” and to love “your neighbor as yourself.”  Jesuscombined the originally separate commandments and presented them as the essence of true religion.  The uniqueness of Jesus’ response consisted his understanding that the two laws have equal value and so are of equal importance because they are interdependent.   We are to love our neighbor and our self as a way to love God: God gives us our neighbors and commands us to love them, and so we obey; His purpose is that in obeying, we learn to love Him better.  God contacts us daily through our neighbors. Thus, Jesus proclaims that true religion loves God both directly and as living in our neighbor.  Biblical love of God is responsive gratitude for, and remembrance of, what God has done for us, rather than an independent project we undertake for God. (“Without the love of neighbor, the love of God remains a barren emotion; and without the love of God, love of neighbor is but a refined form of self-love.” Reginald H. Fuller).

 Catechism on the greatest commandment (CCC #2083, #2196): Love of God means putting Him first, respecting His Name, and keeping His Day [the Sabbath; Sunday for us] Holy.  To love God means a dedication of the entire person to His will, placing Him first in one’s mind and the heart, speaking respectfully about Him, and keeping His Day as one of prayer and true recreation, a day to keep His Law.  Love of God transforms lives every waking moment of every day.

Love of neighbor means respect for others, their relationships, their reputations, and their property.  Dt 6:5 and Lv 19:18 indicate love in action. Loving our neighbor as ourselves means looking at and treating others with the respect God gives them.  This love begins at home with one’s parents.  It then extends to others beyond our family and friends to strangers, especially to the poor, the sick, and the sinner.  Love of neighbor knows no national borders, class distinctions or barriers of any kind, because God knows no such impediments.

To love our neighbor: The English writer G. K. Chesterton once observed that “The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people!” Jesus underlines the principle that we are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves because both of us bear God’s image, and to honor God’s image is to honor Him. The love of God has priority and is our source of love for neighbor. In our neighbor we see something of God, His creature, His image and likeness, and His adopted child. If we love God, then, we must also love His image, the work of His hands. God makes daily contact with us through the people around us. Love for our neighbor is a matter, not of feelings, but of deeds by which we share with others the unmerited love that God lavishes on us.  This is the love for neighbor that God commands in His law.  Since the Jews considered only their fellow-Jews as neighbors, Jesus, challenged, used the parable of the Good Samaritan, as reported in Luke’s Gospel, to show them what God means by “neighbor.”