Greatest Commandment

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Greatest Commandment

By FR. BEL R. SAN LUIS, SVD

October 21, 2011

MANILA, Philippines — Which commandment of the law is the greatest: To love God or to love our fellowmen? Both views have their staunch defenders.

The parish council of a certain prosperous suburban community decided to renovate their old church to provide a worthy celebration of the liturgy.

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When the leaders of a socially conscious group working with the poor learned of the big project, they vigorously protested, saying, “It’s a scandal to beautify the surroundings while the poor are suffering from lack of shelter!”

The leaders suggested that the money be used instead to finance social action projects like providing housing for squatters living at the fringes of the parish.

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This incident illustrates two sharply opposed views of Christian faith: One we may call the vertical dimension; the other, horizontal.

Those who hold the vertical view says that our religion has to do with God or with nothing at all. Their concern is the salvation and sanctification of souls. Prayer, meditation, sacraments, in the traditional sense, are the elements of the vertical view. Proponents reason out that when the church talks too much about social justice, it defiles the sanctuary with worldly things, bringing politics to the pulpit.

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Advocates of the horizontal view, on the other hand, say it is a scandal for the church to build magnificent edifices when people nearby lack the basic necessities. They claim that Jesus was the friend of the poor and the downtrodden. When we are judged, they add, God will not ask us how kilometric our prayers and novenas are, but how much we have helped the “least of Christ’s brethren” (Mt 25:40).

Which of these two views is correct? Where does the true Christian stand?

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In this 30th Sunday, Jesus in the gospel says that there’s only one greatest commandment but, like a coin, there are two sides: Love of God and love of one’s neighbor. Authentic discipleship consists not in espousing one extreme view to the exclusion of the other but in the pursuit of both. It is hard to understand, for instance, a Christian who goes to church regularly but at the same time is harsh, unkind, and merciless to his or her workers or involved in immoral practices.

How then can we resolve the tension between the two views?

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Although Christ was totally immersed in His work of preaching, teaching, healing, He never forgot to turn to the Father in prayer. Listen to this passage: “In the morning, long before dawn, He got up and left the house, and went off to a lonely place and prayed there” (Mk 1:33 ff; see also Lk 5:15-16).

In Christ we find the vertical and the horizontal in wonderful harmony.

We, His followers, are called to combine and live the vertical and horizontal dimensions of our faith. That is where Jesus lived. It is also where He died – the CROSS.