What is the foundation of the Commandments? Love! This Sunday’s Gospel conversation between the Lord and a Scribe is considered “refreshing” as it is friendly and informational—one of learning—rather contentious on the part of the Scribe (and the Pharisees) but key is the idea that today’s Gospel is a conversation about the fundamental Truth about our Faith and our pathway to the Kingdom of God.

The question asked by the Scribe is, “What is the first of the Commandments?” And the Lord answers with a quote from the Jewish Shema, a prayer which confesses “Hear, O Israel: the LORD is our God, the LORD is one.” This is a Jewish prayer prayed twice a day and is the hope of the pious Jew that these Words be on their lips at death. Confessing that “He is One and there is no other than he.' And Christ adds in the Gospel '“to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself.” You see, this also answers the question we need to ask: What does this Godly Love call us to do?

The Love which we are to give to the Lord, a complete and unconditional love, then calls us into a network of relationships—with our brothers and sisters in Christ, and with all humanity. To consider everyone in need our neighbor