Thoughts on Thursday's Gospel

MK 12:28-34

Jesus tells us that the first commandment is to love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves. This is one commandment because one cannot love God without loving what God loves and one cannot love one's neighbor without loving the one who made them.

The two parts of this first commandment must always be kept together - to strive to love God without seeking to love one's neighbor turns God into a personal mouthpiece and makes one into their own personal God. God certainly doesn't need us telling him what he should do. On the other hand to strive to love one's neighbor without also striving to love God turns one's neighbor into simply an object to be formed according to our own desires in the name of making them happy.

In loving God and loving our neighbor we are able to maintain our proper perspective as to our relatedness and distinctiveness with respect to God and neighbor. We let God be God and neighbor be neighbor.