31st Sunday in Ordinary Time

Gospel Bullet Points (Mark 12:28-34)

• In the Gospel, a Scribe who was an expert in interpreting the laws asks a question that was a much-debated issue among scholars of the day. “Of all these laws (the laws contained 613 precepts), which were the most central, the most basic, the one that summed up all the others?
• Jesus answers: “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength” (first reading from Deuteronomy). Jesus adds another command taken from Leviticus 19. “You must love your neighbor as yourself.” These two together are the key to authentic interpretation. You cannot love God and at the same time not love your neighbor or vice versa (1 John 4:20-21). That is significant and one that is central to the Christian living. And the highest model of love is Jesus’ love for humanity. “There is no greater love than to lay down your life” (John 15:13).
• Do you know that it is possible to love someone you don’t even like? To teach us to love, He puts around us some unlovely people—in our workplace, at home, at the school, in every corner. It is easy to love people who are kind, lovely, and lovable. But if God is going to teach us how to love, He will bring to us hard-to-love; people we tend not to like because they don’t like us.
• Let us examine ourselves whether we have other loves that disrupt our love for God. Can we just love others the way Jesus loves us, including those who misunderstand and often oppose us? Do we show our love for our enemies?