Homily: Friday of the 3rd Week of Lent - "...and with all your strength"

While many of the religious leaders saw Jesus as a threat, the one scribe who approached Jesus today, saw in Jesus an opportunity to learn. And so he posed a simple question that expressed a concern embedded deep within every heart.

The scribe's desire to know the greatest commandment reflects a heart that was seeking to understand what God wants from us. He wasn't just trying to trip Jesus up like many of the Pharisees, nor did he want Jesus to tell him the bare minimum of what God expects of us, he sought from Jesus a single simple principle underlying the complexity of the law—a foundational commandment that gives meaning to all of the smaller rules and regulation of religious life.

The command to love God and neighbor is not just an order or duty. After all, no one can love simply because he is told to do so! The greatest commandment impels us to align our will to God's will in everything we do, to make loving and obeying God our highest principle.

Jesus responded to the scribes question by quoting Deuteronomy 6:4-5, the great Israelite confession of faith known as the Shema: Shema Israel, Adonai Eluhenu, Adonai Ehad – Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! By the time of Jesus, this statement was understood to mean that YWHW is not only the one God of the Jews but the one and only God of the whole universe. In a world of polytheism, the jews were the only people to have been granted this earth-shattering insight: there is but one God, who has created all things and who holds all things in existence by his goodness and power. His claim on us is therefore total, calling for a total response at every level of our being.

St. Paul wrote, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.” Many of us glorify God before our meals, by praying, and saying grace. But what about praying before getting in the car, praying before exercising, praying before turning on the television? We do well to pray before meeting with the group of friends with whom I may have fallen into the sin of gossip in the past, praying before sitting down to the computer, praying before getting into bed. If we are tempted NOT to pray before any of our daily activities, perhaps we need to consider if we should be doing them in the first place, or why we are resistant to bringing them to God.

God knows this commandment is not easy. Left to our own powers it would be impossible. But through God's grace, the grace he makes available in the Sacraments, the grace he gives in the Eucharist, he transforms our hearts to rely on his strength in order to love him with all of ours. As we share communion today with love-incarnate, may he teach us, like him, to love God with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength for the glory of God and salvation of souls.