This is the greatest and the first commandment

22 AUGUST (Mt 22,34-40)

The Pharisees want Jesus’ death. But they need a legal pretext to be able to accuse him and take him out of the way. For this reason, they try to make him fall it in some words uttered by his mouth. One sentence considered by their blasphemous for an immediate sentence of stoning is enough. But Jesus knows the wickedness of their hearts. He knows what their true intentions are and always responds with supreme wisdom and intelligence in the Holy Spirit. A most pure word of truth always comes out of his mouth and no heart, not even the most evil, might ever declare it blasphemy. Only before the Sanhedrin, under oath, Jesus is obliged to declare his eternal and divine truth, his true identity as the Son of man. He is accused of blasphemy and handed over to Pilate, the only one at that time with the power of life and death.

The Pharisees study how make Jesus fall. They pose him a complex and difficult question, inextricable in their opinion. The schools of the time were divided on the subject. Jesus’ answer would certainly have knocked out some great teacher who certainly would have risen against him. Instead, Jesus with divine simplicity brings everything back to the Word of his Father. There is the revelation. One must turn to it when he wants to give a definite answer to every question. The revelation is the manifestation of the divine will and there can never be different thoughts against it.

This methodology of Jesus must be always observed. Even today we talk about the most important and less important commandments. We discuss about absolute, less absolute, insignificant, non useful, to be changed, to be transformed and to be renewed moral norms. There is also a great fuss about some central truths of our faith such as God’s mercy, his justice, the eternal future of man, but also about the most appropriate way to be the true Church of the living God, today. It would be sufficient to serve ourselves of the method of Jesus Christ to give a real solution to our every question. Instead we always start from the heart of men, their desires and their sin.

The heart of man is not the principle of truth, of morality, of righteous rules to be observed. In the heart of man reigns the sin and its rules are always the justification of the malaise that gnaws and corrodes it inside. It is necessary instead to always start from the heart of God. God is the source of the truth, morality, justice and sound rules for the well-ordered and holy celebration of our worship. The Father’s heart is all in the heart of Christ. The heart of Christ is placed entirely in his Word. You take the Word in hand and you read it. You invoke the Holy Spirit so that he offers you the whole truth. You give the right solution to all the problems that plague us.

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 neighbour as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

The desire of man is useful for only one purpose: questioning with wisdom and understanding of the Holy Spirit the divine Word of Lord Jesus. The Gospel is what must offer us every solution. However, the Gospel must, be read not with sin in the heart, but with a heart full of the Holy Spirit, full of divine wisdom and intelligence, eternal light and most pure truth. If we ignore this truth, we can also provide solutions for us deemed to be holy, but since they are not ratified by God, they will never be life solutions, but opening of every door to death. On the contrary, Jesus divinely wise and enlightened, reads in the Word of the Father according to truth, and finds in it every answer to all the questions that the Pharisees, scribes, Sadducees pose him to make him fall and so have something to accuse him for immediate and ready condemnation.