Daily Mass Readings 08/22/2014 or Tag, you're it! No, you're it! Oh yeah, well what about that OTHER thing it says in Leviticus!?!?

"You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart,
with all your soul, and with all your mind.
This is the greatest and the first commandment.
The second is like it:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments." -MT 22:37-40

08/22/2014 Memorial of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Here they go again. Those crazy Pharisees and Sadducees, they are always trying to beat Jesus with the 'Gotcha' game. Moses let us divorce Jesus. What do you think? Why'd you heal that guy on the Sabbath? Why are your disciples picking grain? Huh, Jesus, what do you say to THAT one, smart guy..... and on and on. But they never win.

In this instance Jesus basically tells them, hey, you can have all the laws memorized and committed to your photographic memory, but if you don't have love in your heart for others and seek out the desires God has for you, you're going nowhere. The other thing that this gospel reading brings to mind for me is the idea of Jesus' yolk being easy and light and not a burden. You notice he doesn't say that the other laws aren't important, he says they all depend on these two. You see, when you love the Lord and your neighbor, the commandments do not feel like a burden or even a restriction.

Let me give an example. I have absolutely no desire to go on a rampage and wreck all the cars in a parking lot with a baseball bat (as therapeutic as that may seem some days) so for me to refrain from doing that and comply with the law is not a big issue.

Because I love God and try my best to orient my life toward His plan for me, the commandments aren't restrictive rules bearing down on me from some taskmaster, they are guidelines from a loving father. And my compliance with them is not for fear of retribution or the damnation of my immortal soul, it is an expression of love and gratitude to my creator for all of the blessings I have. When I fail, and I do so often, I don't fear God's wrath as much as I feel like I let down someone who loves me; someone who would die for me.

Oh, by the way, the 'gotcha' game has not gone away. Just check out any of the mainstream media's reporting about what Pope Francis allegedly said this week, watch any online commentary about any of the hot-button moral issues or between atheists and believers. Snippets of the bible are passed back and forth venomously, never more than two lines at a time and never in context, whether historical or literary. They try to 'get' us and we try to 'get' them and in the end neither of us 'GETS' the others at all.

Sadly, when it comes to encouraging civilized dialogue, I am short on ideas, (perhaps owing to Sicilian and Irish heritage) so most of the time I just keep quiet. It's sort of the other extreme from the venomous exchange, and in many ways, it too is neither loving to God, nor my neighbor.

God bless,
P.D.O.