Stanley Park, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, October 2019.

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[Jesus, anwering him, said] “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind”.  Matthew 22:37.

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In a curious reversal, today’s readings seem to introduce the basic concept in the gospel, enlarge it a little in the second reading and then culminate in the first reading. Jesus declares that love of God is the first, last and most important teaching whenever and wherever. It is the bedrock of all we think, do and say. Without it we are alone and bereft, adrift in an alien world with plenty of enemies and little defense. Accepting this exhortation, we stand with the angels and saints, beauty surrounding us (not unlike Stanley Park above, in a way), strong and firm in what we do and who we are. St. Paul, writing once again to the new Christians in the Greek city of Thessaloniki, states that they have become a model for all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. They have taken to heart the message he preached, and it has worked! They have become a bright beacon of hope and love in a hostile world, “how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to await his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead…” And then the first reading from the Book of Exodus, laying out the basic rules of behavior becoming a true servant of God, with charity, or love, uppermost, though utterly practical: “If you lend money to one of your poor neighbors among my people, you shall not act like an extortioner toward him…” But it all springs from Jesus’ gospel proclamation concerning the heart of God, love itself.

Croce Dipinta (Painted Cross), di Matteo c.1435, Pinacoteca Nationale, Bologna, Italy.

This image of the cross, painted over 650 years ago, sums up the evidence that love conquers all. Above all is God the Father, whose Son had obeyed him to the bitter end. At Jesus’ baptism, God had revealed who Jesus was, giving him his identity, the Son of God, and his vocation, what he was, the Anointed of God, the Messiah, the Christ, whose task was to fulfill all the prophecies of the Messiah revealed through the centuries by the prophets. At Jesus’ right hand is his mother, present at his death, she who had surrendered to God’s will and had given birth to him and cared for him throughout his childhood. At his left hand is St. John, the only one of Jesus’ apostles who remained steadfast to the end, and who took the Blessed Mother into his care as Jesus himself had requested from the cross. At the base is St. Mary Magdalene, symbolic of those who had accepted Jesus’ teaching even in the face of apparent disaster, undoubtedly bewildered and horrified by it all, but still believing, and who was to reveal the resurrection just three days later. And then there is the Lord himself. He too, I think, was just as bewildered, looking down on a world from which all sign of a loving God seemed to have vanished: “My God, why have you abandoned me?” – yet still surrendering his Spirit into God’s hands, so complete was his undying yet uncomprehending trust. And so it must be with each of us. There will, in everyone’s life, be times of disaster, pain, challenge, when God’s presence will seem to have vanished and we will feel utterly alone. Just as the Lord must have felt. It is at such moments that the only thing we have left is our faith – our hope – to carry us through, underpinned by a bedrock of love. Love is the only guarantee of safe passage through such times, trusting that we will survive and ultimately be received into eternal love and light.

The Baptism of Christ, Verrocchio & da Vinci c.1475, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy.

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