Wednesday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Romans 13:8-10  +  Luke 14:25-33
November 3, 2021

… love is the fulfillment of the law.

In today’s First Reading, Saint Paul speaks about the second of Jesus’ two great commandments.  As you know, Jesus taught His disciples that the Law of God could be simply expressed in two great commandments.  Before Jesus, with the Ten Commandments that God had given Moses, and the hundreds of moral prescriptions developed by rabbis to explain them, Jewish morality had become complex, and to many, overwhelming.  Jesus profoundly simplifies matters for His disciples.

Love God with your whole heart, mind, soul and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.  Jesus teaches us that these two sum up the entire law of God.  St. Paul in our First Reading explains that “love is the fulfillment of the law.”  Love is not simply the summary of the Law, but its fulfillment.

When we are young, our parents make sure that we memorize the Ten Commandments.  It’s important to memorize these ten, as each of the ten touches on a key manner in which we must love God and our neighbor.  But we should not lose sight that all of them are about love.  Today’s First Reading helps us focus on what it means to love our neighbor as our self.  Pray for the grace to bring your love for your neighbor into focus through your love for God.