Save as PDFIn the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!
In today’s Gospel we heard the words about mystery of love. On the eve of Christ’s suffering the high-priests, the Scribes and Pharisees, experts of the Holy Scripture come up to the lord trying to expose Him that He doesn’t know the law. One of these teachers of the law asks the Lord which commandment is the greatest one. He teachers of the law taught that if you studied the Old Testament thoughtfully, you would count 613 commandments. 248 of them are affirmative, that is, they say what you must do, and the rest 365 are negative warning what you mustn’t do.
What does Christ think about it? He professor of theology addressers Him, and we don’t hear the intonation of his voice – if he addresses Christ with respect or triumphant ridicule. Hey say that if the lord singles out one commandment, He will underestimate the others, but all commandments are equal for God. And Christ speaks about love not because this commandment excludes others but because it includes all commandments.
Christ doesn’t oppose love to the Law but shows what great commandment is inside the Low, what treasure is in its depth. He says that the Law and the prophets are founded on these two commandments. It means that the whole Scripture, all commandments have no sense if there is no love in them, at least, aspiration to it.
If there is God’s love in soul, heart, mind and body of a person, it means that a person is on the way to holiness. Why could many saints reach such state when their bodies changed, transformed, and after death their remains were undecayed, imperishable, moreover they became fragrant? It is because the bodies of the saints were penetrated by God’s love when they were still alive. And we, as far as possible for us, must strive for our body becoming the Church of God, the Church of the Holy Spirit.
He first commandment is connected with the second one – “you must love your neighbour as yourself”. One commandment can’t be without the other one. We can’t love God with all our heart, all soul, all mind and all power without loving our neighbour, But we won’t be able to love our neighbours in the right way if we don’t learn to love God. It’s impossible to love your neighbour violating at the same time the seventh commandment. Lust has nothing in common with love. Outwardly it can resemble love but its essence is quite opposite because true love to the neighbour is sacrificial love but not attraction directed to satisfying fleshly lusts.
The Lord says, “you must love your neighbour as yourself”. His is also means that we must love ourselves – not in the sense that we must indulge all our wishes, weakness, vice and passion but in the sense that we must take care of our mind, heart, body so that the love of God could reign inside us. If we don’t love ourselves by Christian love, we won’t be able to love either God or the neighbour, we won’t be able to fulfil the Commandment which is the greatest of the Law and on which hang the law and the Prophets. Amen