26

30^th Sunday in Ordinary Time —Year A

Fr. Jijo Kandamkulathy CMF

 甘天霖神父                   

Gospel: Matthew 22:34-40

A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew,

Glory to you, O Lord!

When the Pharisees heard that he 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."

The Gospel of the Lord.

Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ.

Homily：Whoever Loves Meets God

Hillel, a famous rabbi who lived a few years before Christ, once said “What you do not like, don’t do to your neighbor! This is the whole Law; the rest is commentary.” Philo, a Jewish contemporary of Jesus, from Alexandria summed up the Law into love of God and neighbor. So what is the novelty in the teaching of Jesus?

In the great commandment with two parts, the first is the love of God, that must involve three faculties: the heart, the soul, and the mind.

God, first of all, is to be loved with an undivided heart (with all the heart). Today there are believers, people in the church, who fulfill all religious practices, but at the same time worship their bank account, social position, honorary titles, career, power, and their ambitions. They have indeed a “divided heart”; they do not love with all their heart, as Jesus demands.

With all life (soul). The believer is required to have the willingness to sacrifice everything (money, interest, emotional ties and rights), and even the courage to face martyrdom, while not failing in their faith. Loving God, trusting him can lead to, as often happens, making choices and heroic sacrifices.

With all your mind. Even the rational aspect is part of the love of God. Emotions cannot be the object of a commandment. However, anyone interested in futility, who spends more time with frivolous arguments, who gossips about celebrities rather than studying the word of God, who ignores the theological and moral issues today, who does not undertake to investigate the reasons of their faith, is less involved in the love of God.

After having stated what the greatest commandment is, Jesus adds that this also is the first. He makes this specification to introduce the second, which is like the first: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (v. 39), and here the more apparent novelties begin. What Hillel put negatively, Jesus tells positively to his disciples: “So do to others what you would others do to you; there you have the Law and the Prophets.”

The concluding statement: “The whole Law and the Prophets are founded on these two commandments.” They should be taken as the criteria for evaluating every precept. All laws are good if they are an expression of love. They should be rejected if they oppose it because they are a hindrance to the good of the people.

Later, Paul and subsequent New Testament authors would reduce the two into one Law—love of people. “For the whole law,” Paul reminds us， “is summed up in this sentence: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Gal 5:14). Love cannot do the neighbor any harm, so love fulfills the whole Law (Rom 13:8-10).

We know what it means to love others, even though it is not always easy to determine how this love can be made concrete. But how do we love God? The God of Jesus has never asked for anything for himself. He puts himself at the service of people, even to bending down to wash their feet, and asks us to do the same: “If such has been the love of God,” John says, “we too must love one another” (1 Jn 4:11). For love of people is still love turned to God because it is directed to his image (Gen 1:27).

证道：爱人如己才与主相遇，信赖天主才做出牺牲！

基利尔是生活于基督前几年的一位著名拉比，他曾说：“你自己不喜欢的，也不要这样对待你的邻人！这是全部的法律，其余的都是解读。”菲洛是耶稣同时代的犹太人，来自亚历山大，他将法律总结为爱天主和邻人。那么，耶稣的教导有什么新颖之处呢？

在这个伟大的诫命中有两部分，第一是爱天主，它必须包含三个因素：心、灵魂和理智。

在所有事情之前，第一是以一颗专一之心（全心）爱天主。今日，有很多信友、教堂中的人，虽然满全了信仰的外在要求，却同时在朝拜他们的银行存款、社会地位、荣誉称号、职业、权力和他们的理想和野心。事实上，他们有一颗“分裂的心”，没有按耶稣的命令，以他们的全心去爱。

用全部生命（灵魂）。信友需要乐意牺牲一切金钱、利益、情感纽带和权利，甚至是勇敢地面对殉道，而不是失落他们的信仰。爱天主，正如通常所发生的，信赖祂能引领我们做出抉择和英雄式的牺牲。

用整个理智。即使理性方面也是爱天主的部分。情绪不能成为诫命的对象。不过，任何徒劳的兴趣、那把更多时间花在无聊的争论、八卦名人而不研读天主的话语、忽视今日神学和伦理问题、不承担研究他们信仰的理由的人，就是更少参与爱天主。

耶稣在声明了什么是最大的诫命之后，又补充说这也是第一个。祂做这个说明是为了介绍第二个，就像第一个一样：“你要爱你的邻人如你自已一样”；在这里，开启了更多新奇事物。基里尔看的消极，而耶稣积极地告诉自己的门徒们：“因此，你们想要别人如何待你，你们就要如何待人；那么，你们就拥有了法律和先知。”

结束语是“全部法律和先知，都系于这两条诫命”。它们应被视为评断每个规诫的标准。如果所有法律都是爱的一种表达，就是好的。如果法律阻碍爱，就应被拒绝，因为它们成了人们行善的一种阻碍。

后来，圣保禄和之后的新约作者将这两个缩减为一个法律：爱人。圣保禄提醒我们：“全部法律总括在这句话内：‘爱你的近人如你自己’”（迦5:14）。爱决不能伤害邻人丝毫，所以爱满全了全部法律（罗13:8-10）。

我们知道爱别人意味着什么，尽管将这种爱确定如何具体化并不容易。不过，我们如何爱天主呢？耶稣的天主绝没有为祂自己要求什么。祂将自己置身于服务人，甚至于蹲下为他们擦鞋，并邀请我们也这样做：“如果这样是爱天主”，圣若望说：“我们也必须彼此相爱”（若一4:11）。对人的爱仍旧是转向天主的爱，因为它导向天主的肖像（创1:27）。

文本来源：雅颂福传

译者：天心神父