Amore

Master which is the greatest commandment

Matthew Chapter (22, 34-40)
After Jesus replied to the Sadducees about the resurrection, "Then the Pharisees, hearing that he had shut his mouth to the Sadducees, gathered together and one of them, a doctor of the law, questioned him to test him: Master, what is the greatest commandment of the law? ". He replied: "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 of the commandments, and the second is similar to the first: You will love your neighbor as you yourself: from these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets".
(Mt 22, 34-40).

We are still in Chapter 22 in which Matthew makes a collection of the various controversies now provoked by the scribes, now by the Pharisees, now by the Sadducees, to test Jesus. All of them gather together to put him to the test and this time it is up to Doctor who knows perfectly the law of Moses who asks: "Master, what is the greatest commandment of the law?". This is an ambiguous question because from the answer of Jesus he hoped to find the way to say: Jesus does not respect the law.

Jesus replies: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind".
For St. Paul the soul is the psyche of man, therefore his thought, under this aspect the original translation should be: "You will love the Lord your God with all your mind, with all your will, with all your freedom ". What does it mean to love God with all of you ? That there must be nothing in you that is not love for the Lord.
In the commandment of the ancient law there is the expression: "I am the Lord your God" and then "You will love the Lord your God".

Recognizing God as Lord means accepting that everything can come from Him alone. It means accepting that He is the only reference of our life, since our existence depends exclusively on Him, the author of our life. Now, after accepting this principle we must learn to understand the thought of God. After which we must follow his teachings with all our intelligence, will and freedom, only in this way is it possible to live fully his life.

Yet our freedom can follow the Spirit of God or the spirit of the flesh which is, according to St. Paul, man's pride and human wisdom. The flesh, which is opposed to God, is very convincing because it leads you to manage your life according to your wishes, but if in this path obstacles arise, you ask yourself: Where is God? Well: how do you expect to find it now if you've ever looked for it! And how can you bear the evil you are experiencing if you have lived according to your wishes?

To obey God should be the natural response of man to whom makes him fully enjoy existence. And to teach us the Father sent His Word, Jesus who came to do the will of his Father. Jesus, in fact, said: "what I do I must do, what I say I hear it, my will follows that of my Father, and here He offers us a model based on the first commandment: Love God with all things yourself.

And we can be sure of loving the Lord only if we trace the footsteps of Jesus which means, deny oneself and obey that Jesus who guarantees to be in the will of God.

To the Spirit of God.

The second commandment is similar to the first: You will love your neighbor as yourself.
The simile is to love the neighbor as yourself.
When can we say we are in a situation in which we can love ourselves? And how much do we love ourselves?

Since the second commandment is similar to the first I love myself when I have totally surrendered to Jesus and, by giving my life to Jesus, God allows me to live my life fully because He is the fullness of life.
To love one's neighbor as yourself, means that you must be a sign for your neighbor that helps him to reach this fullness. To better say, offer your neighbor the opportunity to understand that the fullness of life lies in this total surrender to God in Jesus Christ.

This is the love of neighbor and since the love spoken of must be similar to the first, "love the Lord your God ...", it means that the concept of love means giving glory to God, trusting God. Gospel love for one's neighbor is to help him get to trust God so that he can draw from him the fullness of life.

Since at the time of the Pharisees love of neighbor was interpreted according to the tendencies of the various doctrines, then as today, Jesus clarified the concept by saying that love of neighbor is similar to the first. It is the first that gives light, it is the first that puts us in contact with God who is love, so if you do not help others to get to God, you have no love either to God or to your neighbor, so avoid calling him love because it is a love that is not true.

Jesus tells this Doctor of the law: all the commandments have love as a synthesis. Do not love as you say, but according to God.
So the Christian's concern is not to look for ways to do this or that, but to be consistent with love. That love that has its beginning and its root from the fact that I have surrendered to God because I have understood that my life depends only on Him. Then our whole life will be under the sign of love: "You will love your neighbor like yourself".