A nice hotel in Jerusalem looks much like a nice hotel in just about any other city in the world, but for one thing. At the entrance of each room there is a small metal cylinder called a mezuzah that protrudes from the doorjamb.
It contains a tiny scroll with a verse from yesterday’s first reading: “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. Therefore, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”
A few verses later, the author of Deuteronomy says that this command is so important that it should be repeated constantly, hung as a pendant from our foreheads, even inscribed on our doorposts. Hence the mezuzahs in the Jerusalem hotel, and the phylactery boxes that pious Jews strap to their forearms and foreheads, even to this day, as they pray at Jerusalem’s western wall.
So the Lord Jesus was not doing anything particularly new when He underlined this famous verse as the most important commandment. True, He did connect this with a verse from Leviticus 19:18: “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” It could have been, though, that another rabbi paired these two commandments before Him.
But there is something absolutely original about Jesus’ approach to these commandments, something that no one managed to accomplish before Him. He actually kept them.
Some people, like the rich young man, had managed to keep a good many of the other commandments, like “thou shalt not steal” or “thou shalt not commit adultery.” These commandments prohibit a certain kind of evil activity. They set limits that cannot be transgressed, boundaries that are well marked. To violate these commandments means stepping over the line, engaging in a sin of commission.
With the two commandments in today’s Gospel however, it is not about engaging in a forbidden activity or crossing a well-defined frontier. It is a positive command of loving like God loves, wholeheartedly, completely, every minute of every day. The sin forbidden here is a sin of omission, of failing to carry out a positive obligation that binds us at every moment. It’s not just about some visible activity, but the hidden motivation of each and every activity. For a sinful human being, fulfilling this commandment is much more difficult than refraining from larceny, fornication, or pork sausage. In fact, it is positively impossible.
So forget about the nonsense that “I deserve to go to heaven: I love God and am a decent enough person.” Sorry, but God has given you everything. Justice requires that you should not just give a “nod to God” in weekly church attendance and grace before meals, not just avoid murder and burglary. You are obliged ardently to love and serve God 24/7. Neglect to do this for a moment and you’ve done an injustice to God and deserve to pay the consequences.
Fortunately, however, Jesus lived every moment motivated by perfect love — for us and for God. He even preferred torture and death to reneging on His commitment to fulfill these two commandments. By His obedience, He won eternal life for Himself and all who belong to Him, crediting to their account what He Himself earned by His own blood, sweat, and tears.
And this perfect yet merciful high priest continues to live for us, ever at the Father’s right hand interceding for us. He prays for mercy, that the Father would look not at our sins and the consequences that they deserve, but rather at the Cross which Jesus endured so that those sins would be wiped away forever. Yet He also prays that His Spirit would be poured out on us ever anew, empowering us to love with greater and greater intensity, with fewer and fewer interruptions, exceptions, and limitations. For He did not die just to ensure that His love would be credited to our account. He poured out His blood so that it would run in our veins, that we would be empowered to love with His heart.
For man, such whole-hearted love is impossible. But with God, all things are possible.
Dr. D'Ambrosio studied under Avery Cardinal Dulles for his Ph.D. in historical theology and taught for many years at the University of Dallas. He now directs www.crossroadsinitiative.com, which offers Catholic resources for RCIA, adult faith formation, and teens, with a special emphasis on the Year of the Eucharist, the Theology of the Body, the early Church Fathers, and the sacrament of confirmation.
For info on his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, visit www.crossroadsinitiative.com or call 1.800.803.0118.
(This article originally appeared in Our Sunday Visitor and is used by permission of the author.)
