30th Sunday In Ordinary Time :: Op-stjoseph.org

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time Scripture Readings First Exodus 22:20-26 Second 1 Thessalonians 1:5c-10 Gospel Matthew 22:34-40 Prepared by: Fr. James Cuddy, O.P. 1. Subject Matter 

This Sunday’s liturgy pays particular attention to the “greatest commandment,” which is, of course two separate commandments: love of God and love of neighbor.

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There is also a consideration of the relationship that exists between justice and mercy, in God’s dealings with us and in the way we act towards each other.

2. Exegetical Notes 

“The alien is one who, because of war, plague, famine, or bloodguilt was forced to leave his home. In his new abode, of course, his civic rights are less than those of his neighbors. As assurance that the Israelites would be hospitable to these unfortunates, the code reminds them of their former status as aliens in Egypt” (JBC).

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For the Thessalonian community, becoming “imitators of us and of the Lord” consisted of “sharing in the eschatological affliction and/or the proclamation of the gospel. As the Thessalonians had become imitators of Paul and the Lord, they in turn become examples for other believers. . . . That the gospel is received in affliction and yet with joy affirms that the proclamation and reception of the gospel are an eschatological event” (NJBC).

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In the Gospel, the appeal of scholar of the law concerning the “greatest commandment” is “a request for the summary of Israel’s law or, even deeper, for its center” (NJBC). “To this arrangement of the two commandments that they become effectively one, there is no parallel in Jewish literature” (JBC).

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The love that our Lord commands “is not primarily a feeling but covenant fidelity, a matter of willing and doing” (NJBC).

3. References to the Catechism of the Catholic Church 

1823 Jesus makes charity the new commandment. By loving his own to the end, he makes manifest the Father's love which he receives. By loving one another, the disciples imitate the

love of Jesus which they themselves receive. Whence Jesus says: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love.” And again: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” 

2055 The Decalogue must be interpreted in light of this twofold yet single commandment of love, the fullness of the Law: “The commandments: You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet, and any other commandment, are summed up in this sentence: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:9-10).

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2083 God has loved us first. The love of the One God is recalled in the first of the "ten words." The commandments then make explicit the response of love that man is called to give to his God.

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1337 Knowing that the hour had come to leave this world and return to the Father, in the course of a meal he washed their feet and gave them the commandment of love. In order to leave them a pledge of this love, in order never to depart from his own and to make them sharers in his Passover, he instituted the Eucharist as the memorial of his death and Resurrection, and commanded his apostles to celebrate it until his return.

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1970 The entire Law of the Gospel is contained in the “new commandment” of Jesus, to love one another as he has loved us.

4. Patristic Commentary and Other Authorities 

Pseudo-Chrysostom: “To love God with the whole heart is to have the heart inclined to the love of nothing more than of God. [This we] cannot do unless we first depart from the love of the things of this world.

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Augustine: “You are commanded to love God with all your heart, that your whole thoughts, your whole soul, your whole life . . . may be given to Him from whom you have that which you give. Thus He has left no part of our life which may justly be unfilled of Him.”

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Augustine: “Man is the most perfect when his whole life tends towards the life unchangeable, and clings to it with the whole purpose of his soul.”

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Augustine: “People are renewed by love. As sinful desire ages them, so love rejuvenates them. Enmeshed in the toils of his desires the psalmist laments: I have grown old surrounded by my enemies. Love, on the other hand, is the sign of our renewal as we know from the Lord’s own words: I give you a new commandment – love one another.”

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Origen: “When the Lord adds, This is the first and greatest commandment, we learn how we ought to think of the commandments, that there is a great one, and that there are less down to the least. And the Lord says not only that it is a great, but that it is the first commandment, not in order of Scripture, but in supremacy of value.”

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Thomas Aquinas: “Now the work of divine justice always presupposes the work of mercy and is founded thereupon. For nothing is due to creatures, except for something preexisting in them, or foreknown. . . . So in every work of God, viewed at its primary source, there appears mercy. In all that follows, the power of mercy remains, and works indeed with even greater force; as the influence of the first cause is more intense than that of second causes. For this reason does God out of the abundance of His goodness bestow upon creatures what is due

to them more bountifully than is proportionate to their deserts: since less would suffice for preserving the order of justice than what the divine goodness confers; because between creatures and God’s goodness there can be no proportion.” 

John Paul II: “Am I my brother's keeper? Yes, every man is his brother's keeper, because God entrusts us to one another. And it is also in view of this entrusting that God gives everyone freedom, a freedom which possesses an inherently relational dimension. This is a great gift of the Creator, placed as it is at the service of the person and of his fulfillment through the gift of self and openness to others; but when freedom is made absolute in an individualistic way, it is emptied of its original content, and its very meaning and dignity are contradicted.

5. Examples from the Saints and Other Exemplars 

In her Dialogues, God said to St. Catherine: “I will not separate you from me, but rather I want to bring you closer to me through your love of neighbor. Remember that I gave you two commandments of love: love of God and love of neighbor. It is the righteousness of both commandments that I want to fulfill. You will walk on the path that I will show you with both feet . . .”

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Love of God and love of neighbor came together in the life of St. Antoninus of Florence. “His constant concern for the poor led him not only to do works of charity but it also became the basis for his theological activities. Antoninus was a judge and an apostolic commissioner mandated by the Holy See to examine cases of usury – cases involving interests rates that were so high that they ruined the poor. In his treatises on Confession and Moral Theology he fought against interest on loans and against fraudulent exchange rates” (op.org).

6. Quotations from Pope Benedict XVI 

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“Union with Christ is also union with all those to whom he gives himself. I cannot possess Christ just for myself; I can belong to him only in union with all those who have become, or who will become, his own. Communion draws me out of myself towards him, and thus also towards unity with all Christians. We become one body, completely joined in a single existence. Love of God and love of neighbor are now truly united: God incarnate draws us all to himself.” “Eucharistic communion, includes the reality both of being loved and of loving others in turn. A Eucharist which does not pass over into the concrete practice of love is intrinsically fragmented. Conversely . . . the commandment of love is only possible because it is more than a requirement. Love can be commanded because it has first been given.” “[God] loves us, he makes us see and experience his love, and since he has loved us first, love can also blossom as a response within us.” “Can love be commanded? . . . God does not demand of us a feeling which we ourselves are incapable of producing. In the gradual unfolding of this encounter, it is clearly revealed that love is not merely a sentiment. Sentiments come and go. A sentiment can be a marvelous first spark, but it is not the fullness of love. . . . It is characteristic of mature love that it . . . engages the whole man, so to speak. Contact with the visible manifestations of God's love

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can awaken within us a feeling of joy born of the experience of being loved. But this encounter also engages our will and our intellect.” “Love is never finished and complete; throughout life, it changes and matures, and thus remains faithful to itself.” “Classical theology, as we know, understands the virtue of justice as composed of two elements which for Christians cannot be separated; justice is the firm will to render to God what is owed to God, and to our neighbor what is owed to him. Indeed, justice toward God is what we call the virtue of religion; justice toward other human beings is the fundamental attitude that respects the other as a person created by God.”

7. Other Considerations 

There is a natural continuity between last Sunday’s readings and this week’s Liturgy of the Word. If one is to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give to one’s neighbor as he ought, he must first recognize that he has been the recipient of God’s countless blessings and mercies. “You were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt.”

Recommended Resources Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est (Washington, DC: USCCB Publishing, 2006). Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, The Compendium of the Social Doctrines of the Church (Washington, DC: USCCB Publishing, 2005). Peter John Cameron, To Praise, To Bless, To Preach – Cycle A (Huntington: Our Sunday Visitor, 2001).