Jesus Was Asked for One Commandment. He Gave Two.

Brother,

In today's Gospel a teacher of the law puts a test question to Jesus. Of all the commandments in the law, which one comes first?

He was asked for one. He gave two.

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind." (Matthew 22:37, Douay-Rheims)

"Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." (Matthew 22:39, Douay-Rheims)

Then he ties them together: "On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets." (Matthew 22:40, Douay-Rheims)

Whole, not most

Read the first one slowly. Whole heart. Whole soul. Whole mind.

Not most of it. Not what is left after the job, the game and the phone.

Today's psalm gives the words a man can say back: "I will love thee, O Lord, my strength" (Psalm 17:2, Douay-Rheims; Psalm 18 in modern Bibles). Love that leans on him. Love that knows where its strength comes from.

The Catechism teaches that all Ten Commandments are to be read through this one double command of love, which fulfils the whole Law (CCC 2055).

Two loves. One commandment. You do not get to keep one and drop the other.

The neighbour at your table

We tend to hear "neighbour" and think of the man across the street. Start closer.

The nearest neighbour you have is your wife across the table. Then the children in the next room.

Saint Paul puts it plainly for husbands: "So also ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife, loveth himself." (Ephesians 5:28, Douay-Rheims) Read the whole passage and you find it opens with this: "Being subject one to another, in the fear of Christ." (Ephesians 5:21, Douay-Rheims) Love that serves. Not love that rules.

And Saint John closes every escape route: "he that loveth not his brother, whom he seeth, how can he love God, whom he seeth not?" (1 John 4:20, Douay-Rheims)

A man can sing loud at Mass and be short with his kids in the car on the way home. We have all done it. The two commandments do not let us keep those in separate boxes.

A short reckoning

So how does a man know how he is doing? He looks.

The Church has a name for this: an examination of conscience. She asks us to make one before Confession, and to measure our lives by the Word of God when we do (CCC 1454). But a man does not have to wait for the confessional line to look honestly at his day.

Today's Gospel hands you the measure. Two questions. Did I love God today? Did I love the people he put in my house?

Keep it short. Keep it honest. Two minutes a night, every night, will teach a man a great deal about himself, and send him to Confession better prepared.

This week

One act. Tonight, before you sleep, take two minutes. Sit or kneel. Make the Sign of the Cross.

Ask the first question: Did I love God today, with my whole heart? Then the second: Did I love my wife and children today as I love myself? If you live alone, ask it of the people you worked beside.

Name one place you fell short. Tell God you are sorry, and bring anything serious to Confession. Name one thing you will do better tomorrow. Then pray the psalm's line: "I will love thee, O Lord, my strength."

Then do it every night this week. Same two questions. Same line.

The Sanctum is built on reps.

Altar. Arms. Allegiance.

— The Sanctum Dispatch

On the channel

The short films are on YouTube — subscribe at youtube.com/@1765Sanctum so they find you.

P.S. — Which question was harder for you this week, the first or the second? One word is enough. Hit reply — I read every reply.

One last thing this week. If you want a month of small acts like tonight's two questions, the free 30-day program The Priest of Your Home sends one a day, for leading prayer in your house — the priesthood of the baptized, lived at home (CCC 1657), not Holy Orders: 1765sanctumco.com/priest-of-your-home

For God.  For country.  For the fight.

In Christ and Our Lady,
Will
1765 Sanctum Co.