Working with the Word

Focusing the Gospel

Key words and phrases: What is written in the law?, love … with all … with all … with all …

To the point: What is written in the law?” Jesus asks the “scholar of the law.” Many would tend to answer by citing the Ten Commandments or civil law. But the lawyer in the Gospel answered correctly when he named love as the law. Law is not about keeping rules, but about loving others. Eternal life is not inherited by keeping laws, but by caring for others and treating them with mercy. The law of    love teaches us to “love … with all … with all … with all … ” Love is nothing less than the unconditional gift of self.

Connecting the Gospel …

... to the first reading: The Law is not “mysterious and remote,” but is “already in [our] mouths and in [our] hearts.” We “have only to carry it out” and, as the Gospel reminds us, it bears the human face of our neighbor in need.

... to experience: As a framework to guide human behavior, law is good and necessary. Even when rearing children, we teach them to go beyond mere observance of laws’ external demands to grasping the laws’ deeper intent: building a community of care, respect, mercy—love.
 

**From Saint Louis University