Gospel Reading (Mt. 22:34-40)

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees,
they gathered together, and one of them,
a scholar of the law, tested him by asking,
“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
He said to him,
“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.”

Friends, in this complex and complicated society, the act of going back to the basics of things is necessary. It is because if we do not know the fundamentals, it will be hard for us to deeply understand and appreciate the intricate progress of the things around us. That is why, it is essential to equip ourselves with the basic knowledge of things and of life in general.

In today’s Gospel reading, our Lord Jesus Christ is directing us to remember the basics of Christian life. So, in his ongoing dialogue with the scholars of the Mosaic Law, he states the two greatest commandments that are centered in love, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart…. and your neighbor as yourself.” Wherein, he elaborately said, “The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” Likewise, as Christians, it is on these two commandments of love that our basic responsibilities depend as well.

Thus, if we do not strive to live and equip our hearts and minds with these two commandments of love, yet we call ourselves “Christian”, we are simply nothing. Just as St. Paul said, in his first letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 13:1-3), “If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.”