the book of Deuteronomy where Moses gave the people the famous
commandment which is you know sometimes you hear the saying or the expression that oh the God of
the Old Testament was different than the God of the New Testament no it was the same God for God
is immutable he's unchangeable and through Moses God gave the Israelites already that
primary commandment to love and they were told first and foremost to love God in the Shema
Israel that famous prayer that he gave them in the first reading Moses gave this to the Israelites
and this is the thing that the Israelites and even the Pharisees prided themselves in having
the phylacteries and these little boxes of little leather box they tied to their forehead that had
this little prayer commandment to love God and they were told first and foremost to love God
contained in it because they were told to wear it on their
on their forehead and to keep it around their wrist as a reminder
so they took Moses' command literally and they
really put this little scroll in this little leather
box and they tied it around their forehead as a way to remind them
that this was supposed to be first and foremost in their memory was to love
God with their whole heart, with their whole soul and with their whole strength
obviously they did not take it to heart because just
because you tie it to your forehead doesn't mean that you're going to live it out
and the reason why the Israelites
weren't able to live it out is because the incarnation
had not taken place and the grace was not given to
them as readily after the incarnation
the incarnation of our Lord was really a
a
a high point and it really was when the grace was able to be given
in a lot more abundant way but the commandment was already there
Moses gave it to them already
at the very beginning when they left Egypt
and gave them this commandment called the Shema Israel
and our Lord when he was tested by the Pharisees
and by the scribes repeated that as the first
commandment. He gave them the...he repeated back to this
scribe the Shema Israel. Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is Lord alone
you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind
and with all your strength and he added to it
something which is you might say the superiority of the
new law as our Lord make clear to them
you shall love your neighbor as yourself. That the summation of the Ten
commandments that moses gave the israelites in the old testament is summed up in these two
commandments the first four are the first three of the ten commandments have to do with loving god
the the last seven have to do with loving your neighbor as yourself and
this is the summation of everything that why we live the commandments is the essence of them is
to show our love for god and our love for our neighbor and our lord even later on we'll say
to him if you love me you will keep my commandments so the commandments are very important they are
really the the litmus test to whether or not we say we love god you know you hear a lot of people
say oh i love god i love god but they don't keep his commandments you know they think they love
god but they don't go to church on sunday they say well i can pray to god when i'm out in the woods
well that may be true but god didn't tell you that
your
to love him in the woods you're supposed to first and foremost go to church
and give him your due adoration according to the way god has prescribed not the way you want to
this is where you know the whole point is that
like the ten commandments everything has an objective definition we're not into this
relativism where we make it up as we go it's whatever we want to do first we have to please god
and he's the one who sets the standard and he's the one who makes the rules and we have to follow
them and those rules are not burdensome as he says but rather there where the freedom
comes from to the degree that we live out and live according to the way god has established
we will truly be free we know that people who don't observe the ten commandments and become
enslaved to sin are not truly free even though they may think they're not free or that they think they are free for their own reason or that they are not true
though they may think they're having pleasure doing that. The drunk, you know, the alcoholic
who doesn't keep the Ten Commandments, even though he may have a nice, he may have some pleasure for
the moment, knows that his life is miserable because he has an attachment and an enslavement
to the sin of alcoholism. And so we know that any of those Ten Commandments are rather means to
freedom as opposed to binding us. They bind us, if anything, to God. They keep us attached to God
and not astray. That we must always keep that in mind, the Ten Commandments are truly
the way to freedom, and they keep us most assuredly happy in this life and will keep us
happy in the next. The Ten Commandments are not thrown out.
Our Lord just shows us that the essence of them is love of God and love of neighbor.
We can't say we're loving our neighbor if we're violating the Ten Commandments. And this is where
love has been sometimes misinterpreted or defined incorrectly. People today, when they think of love,
they think of the emotion and they think of some kind of feeling that that is somehow love. Well,
that might be one.
But love in itself and in its essence is an act of the will to desire the good of the other.
And we know that to desire the good, and in this case, supernatural love, to desire the highest
good for the other means that we will not do anything that will violate the Ten Commandments
because that would be contradictory. And so many people today, you know, have abused the
word love and that this is something where we must always remember that love is never in violation of
the truth, and that you can't really have compassion or love for anyone if you're not wanting to lead
them to the truth and to salvation, you know, this is sometimes the excuse that people who are living
in a wrong relationship, you know, living outside of marriage will say, well, we love one another.
Well, that
is not exactly true because if they loved one another they would not want to lead the other
into sin or in violation of the higher law which is first and foremost to love God and if someone
is leading someone into sin they are not definitely loving God or them their partner their friend
let us today as we reflect on the ten commandments and reflect on our Lord's
gospel today you know remind ourselves of the importance of the ten commandments and how they
help us to know how we are loving God and that we are loving him they are really a good test for us
to see if we are truly living out that love that we should have for God and for our loved ones
and for our loved ones and for our loved ones and for our loved ones and for our loved ones and for us
our neighbor and especially today remember and to remind ourselves that God has shown us the example
of love and as Saint Maximilian Kolbe has said so well in his life he said without sacrifice there
is no proof of love that really sacrifice that sacrificial love that Christ shows us
really is the essence of the kind of love that we're called to as Christians you know that
we're called really to give of ourselves to sacrifice ourselves for for God first and foremost
and to sacrifice ourselves for our neighbor that we are first and foremost wanting desire and put
God first and then our neighbor and ourselves last and if we have that kind of sacrificial love
we're going to be able to make that sacrifice and make that sacrifice and make that sacrifice
and make that sacrifice and make that sacrifice and make that sacrifice and make that sacrifice and
and we are truly living it out,
then we can say that we are loving one another as Christ has loved us.
He has given us the example, and it is possible to do,
even in the 21st century,
we can love one another and God as he has loved us.
That's the beauty of the grace that we have received at baptism,
that we are able to do something which we're not possible to do by ourselves.
That with baptism, we have received the grace to not only know as God knows,
and that is the gift of faith,
and we're in this year of faith, the doorway of faith, as Pope Benedict has said.
We're able to know God as he knows himself,
and that is a great light to our intellect.
But one thing more,
we're given,
by baptism, that is to love God as he loves himself.
That's the other aspect of charity,
that is, it elevates our wills to love,
not just purely in a human way,
but in a divine way.
And our Lord gives us that example when he says that,
you know, even pagans love those who love themselves.
But we can, by the grace of baptism, love our enemies
and pray for those who persecute us.
We can love those, even when those people are persecuting us or are not lovable,
we have that grace because of the grace of baptism
that our Lord has given us this great gift to share in his divine life.
And that is not only to know him, but also to love as he loves.
Not only to love God, but to love our neighbor.
And so we ask and thank God for this grace,
and we pray that we will truly receive it,
and that we will truly respond to that grace in our daily life,
that we have the ability to love,
even when someone is not lovable.
And our Lord has given us already that example
because he loved us when we were his enemies.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.