Daily Retreat 11/05/06
2006 Nov 5 SUN: THIRTY-FIRST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Dt 6: 2-6/ Ps 17(18): 2-3. 3-4. 47. 51 (2)/ Heb 7: 23-28/ Mk 12: 28b-34
From today’s readings: “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone! Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.... I love you, Lord, my strength.... It was fitting that we should have such a high priest: holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, higher than the heavens.... You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. ”
Number One Commandment
Faithful Jews daily pray the Shema, reciting those hallowed verses from the Book of Deuteronomy: “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone! Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength....”
If the word “God” means anything, He must be recognized as numero uno in our lives, the most important of all, worthy of all our love. And to insure the point is fully grasped, Sacred Scripture spells out the particulars: love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
How can we love God with all our heart? Well, the heart, of course, is the core of human affectivity and charity. So often, this is pretty messy business, as we all well know. At the beginning of our lives, our hearts are drawn primarily to our mothers, and the other loving members of our family. But soon the heart is tugged in other directions as well, because of friends, and a betrothed, and other people, and even other things in our lives. Don’t these affections, some of them very noble, make it impossible for us to love God with all our heart?
But, as St. Augustine wrote, “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.” When the human heart is caught up with loving people or things for their own sakes, it can be only partially and temporarily satisfied - it remains restless, unfulfilled, simply because it was made for more. My human thirst cannot be satisfied by any drop of even the purest, freshest water, and even a full glass or whole gallon of such water would only last so long - to truly and fully quench my thirst, I need a fountain, an endless supply of water! So too, the human heart cannot fully be filled with finite love - no, for the heart ever thirsts for the infinite fountain of love, God Himself!
The many human loves of our hearts, then, must be tethered to our love for God, or else they will inevitably break our hearts. A husband and wife who love each other wholeheartedly with the pure love with which God unites them and blesses them to faithfully mirror and magnify, to zealously echo and incarnate His divine love, to help and be helped on the ladder of love reaching to Heaven - such a saintly couple show how to wholly love God through holy love shared and kindled by divine design with all their heart!
How then can we love God with all our soul? Well, the soul, of course, is the seat of human identity, spirituality, and morality. All that is the essence of our lives: What do we stand for? Where do we strive to set ourselves, not just in time, but in eternity? Where do we turn for guidance in our lives to sort through the dire dilemmas of right and wrong?
The soul-searching essentials of life are thus likewise our sanctioned avenues of love, which cannot be reduced to merely the sensual and corporeal aspect. God created us body and soul, and yet the materialistic world would have us ignore or deny the whole second half of the equation. But what happens then? So many have been burned by those who love just the body, but not the soul - surely, there’s no need for hypothetic examples from me.
Like the heart, the soul was made for love - transcendent, immortal love! But like the heart, the soul can be tragically spent and lost on less than living love, those pretenders and parodies and perversions of love, those mockeries and make-believes and mistaken identities of love - all of those soulless loves! Only with God is there soul-animating love. Why? Because He is the very source of the soul, as Scripture says, “the LORD God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the spirit of life, and so man became a living soul.”
How then can we love God with all our strength? Well, strength, of course, is the standard of human ability, corporality, and mortality. These too are meaty matters of our lives. For who needs or wants love that is merely theoretical? What worth is there in a weak love? The only thing that counts is love that is strong, real, practical, lived out, fortified with constant exercise, and proven with deeds and actions, and not just professed with words.
Like the heart and the soul, our strength was made for love - almighty, everlasting love! But like the heart and the soul, our strength too can be wasted and thrown away to less than love. Lust and greed and selfish ambition, self-pride and idolatrous self-love, cynicism and sloth will all sap our strength, or tap it for the service of Hell. Only when all our strength is exerted in love for the omnipotent God can it well carry all burdens of life and the sacrificial loads of love.
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. ” Already, that commands so much, yet when Jesus quoted Scripture, He saw fit to insert, “and with all your mind.” How then can we love God with all our mind? Well, the mind, of course, is the measure of human intelligibility, sanity, and creativity. And when we meditate on the Word of God, and think about what He teaches, soon the enlightening insight will remind us of how much more you and I can love the Lord our God, when we just hear anew the command and carry it out with all our lives: “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!”
Dt 6: 2-6/ Ps 17(18): 2-3. 3-4. 47. 51 (2)/ Heb 7: 23-28/ Mk 12: 28b-34
From today’s readings: “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone! Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.... I love you, Lord, my strength.... It was fitting that we should have such a high priest: holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, higher than the heavens.... You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. ”
Number One Commandment
Faithful Jews daily pray the Shema, reciting those hallowed verses from the Book of Deuteronomy: “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone! Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength....”
If the word “God” means anything, He must be recognized as numero uno in our lives, the most important of all, worthy of all our love. And to insure the point is fully grasped, Sacred Scripture spells out the particulars: love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
How can we love God with all our heart? Well, the heart, of course, is the core of human affectivity and charity. So often, this is pretty messy business, as we all well know. At the beginning of our lives, our hearts are drawn primarily to our mothers, and the other loving members of our family. But soon the heart is tugged in other directions as well, because of friends, and a betrothed, and other people, and even other things in our lives. Don’t these affections, some of them very noble, make it impossible for us to love God with all our heart?
But, as St. Augustine wrote, “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.” When the human heart is caught up with loving people or things for their own sakes, it can be only partially and temporarily satisfied - it remains restless, unfulfilled, simply because it was made for more. My human thirst cannot be satisfied by any drop of even the purest, freshest water, and even a full glass or whole gallon of such water would only last so long - to truly and fully quench my thirst, I need a fountain, an endless supply of water! So too, the human heart cannot fully be filled with finite love - no, for the heart ever thirsts for the infinite fountain of love, God Himself!
The many human loves of our hearts, then, must be tethered to our love for God, or else they will inevitably break our hearts. A husband and wife who love each other wholeheartedly with the pure love with which God unites them and blesses them to faithfully mirror and magnify, to zealously echo and incarnate His divine love, to help and be helped on the ladder of love reaching to Heaven - such a saintly couple show how to wholly love God through holy love shared and kindled by divine design with all their heart!
How then can we love God with all our soul? Well, the soul, of course, is the seat of human identity, spirituality, and morality. All that is the essence of our lives: What do we stand for? Where do we strive to set ourselves, not just in time, but in eternity? Where do we turn for guidance in our lives to sort through the dire dilemmas of right and wrong?
The soul-searching essentials of life are thus likewise our sanctioned avenues of love, which cannot be reduced to merely the sensual and corporeal aspect. God created us body and soul, and yet the materialistic world would have us ignore or deny the whole second half of the equation. But what happens then? So many have been burned by those who love just the body, but not the soul - surely, there’s no need for hypothetic examples from me.
Like the heart, the soul was made for love - transcendent, immortal love! But like the heart, the soul can be tragically spent and lost on less than living love, those pretenders and parodies and perversions of love, those mockeries and make-believes and mistaken identities of love - all of those soulless loves! Only with God is there soul-animating love. Why? Because He is the very source of the soul, as Scripture says, “the LORD God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the spirit of life, and so man became a living soul.”
How then can we love God with all our strength? Well, strength, of course, is the standard of human ability, corporality, and mortality. These too are meaty matters of our lives. For who needs or wants love that is merely theoretical? What worth is there in a weak love? The only thing that counts is love that is strong, real, practical, lived out, fortified with constant exercise, and proven with deeds and actions, and not just professed with words.
Like the heart and the soul, our strength was made for love - almighty, everlasting love! But like the heart and the soul, our strength too can be wasted and thrown away to less than love. Lust and greed and selfish ambition, self-pride and idolatrous self-love, cynicism and sloth will all sap our strength, or tap it for the service of Hell. Only when all our strength is exerted in love for the omnipotent God can it well carry all burdens of life and the sacrificial loads of love.
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. ” Already, that commands so much, yet when Jesus quoted Scripture, He saw fit to insert, “and with all your mind.” How then can we love God with all our mind? Well, the mind, of course, is the measure of human intelligibility, sanity, and creativity. And when we meditate on the Word of God, and think about what He teaches, soon the enlightening insight will remind us of how much more you and I can love the Lord our God, when we just hear anew the command and carry it out with all our lives: “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!”
posted by FrPitstick | 11/04/2006
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