＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊

Exodus 22:20-26

 You shall not wrong or oppress a stranger,

For you were strangers in the land of Egypt.  You shall not harm the widow or the orphan. If you do harm them and they cry out to me, I will hear them and my anger will blaze and I will kill you with the sword, and your own wives will be widows and your own children orphans.

 If you lend money to any of my people who are poor, do not act like a moneylender and do not charge him interest.  If ever you take a person’s cloak as a pledge, you must give it back to him by sunset, for it is all the covering he has for his body. In what else will he sleep? And when he cries to me I will hear him, for I am full of pity.

 

Ps 18:2-3, 3-4, 47, 51(2)

I love you, Lord, my strength.

 

＊＊＊ 2nd Reading ＊＊＊

1 Thessalonians 1:5c-10

The gospel we brought you was such not only in words. Miracles, Holy Spirit and plenty of everything were given to you. You also know how we dealt with you for your sake. In return, you became followers of us and of the Lord when, on receiving the word, you expe­rienced the joy of the Holy Spirit in the midst of great opposition.   

And you became a model for the faithful of Macedonia and Achaia,  since from you the word of the Lord spread to Mace­donia and Achaia, and still farther. The faith you have in God has become news in so many places that we need say no more about it.  

Others tell of how you welcome us and turned from idols to the Lord. For you serve the living and true God, and you wait for his Son from heaven whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, who frees us from impending trial.

 

＊＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊＊

Matthew 22:34-40

 When the Pharisees heard how Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they came together.   One of them, a teacher of the Law, tried to test him with this question,   “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the Law?”

 Jesus answered, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.   This is the first and the most important of the commandments.   But after this there is another one very similar to it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  The whole Law and the Prophets are founded on these two commandments.”

 

Gospel Reflection：

Read:

The question of the lawyer in today’s Gospel was a current discussion among experts of the law in the time of Jesus. The rabbis counted 613 laws the pious Jew was supposed to observe.

They counted 365 negative commandments and 248positive commandments. Which then was the “greatest commandment?” The first reading from Exodus reminded Israel to observe the love of neighbor, particularly the poor and the helpless (orphans, widows, and aliens).

Jesus points to the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:5) – the love of the One God – as the first and the second is the love of neighbor a portion of which is found in Exodus 22, our reading.

Reflect:

The first 3 commandments of the Decalogue contain the law to love God and the other 7 are commandments that ensure the proper love of neighbor. The first is intimately connected to the second.

The second. tablet confirms the genuineness of the first. The vertical, the love of God, is verified with the horizontal, the love of neighbor. Mother Teresa of Calcutta had a great love for the poorest of the poor because she had a great love first for Jesus.

Pray:

The scribes and rabbis debate about the law. Holiness and salvation does not depend on knowledge but on action. In the parallel of this Gospel in Luke 10:25-27 Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Act:

It is good to examine our selves on how we stand on the law of Love. If we were to give ourselves a grade, in a scale of 1-10 with 1 as the lowest and 10 as the highest, what would be our grade?