Fr Agustinus Sutiono O.Carm

Any time Jesus received a question from a scholar of the law or the scribes, He replied to it by asking what they knew about the possible answer according to the source of their knowledge. A scholar of the law stood up to test Jesus and said: “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” Then, he replied: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength,and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” He amended his answer: “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.” What a feeling! Feeling flattered, he forgot to answer the second question: How do you read it? Instead of answering, he proposed another question to justify himself, saying: “And who is my neighbor?” Patiently and generously, Jesus replied to his question by offering him a story, a story about a good Samaritan.

Jesus welcame anyone who looked for understanding. He affirmed that eternal life woud belong to anyone who put into practice the commandment to love God with those qualities and to love the neighbour as ourself. We are familiar with this passage of the gospel. The essence of these commandment to love ourself, to love our neighbour and to love God our Lord is the commandment to love. Originally, the word to love means to friend, meaning to make a friend. It means that those three commandments are a commandment to make friendship with ourself, our neighbour and with God. In doing so, we are advised to use our heart, our soul or whole being, our mind and our strength. We know for sure that when we love ourself, we are treating ourself well, accepting ourself unconditionally, doing the best, the most useful and meaningful things to us, and we will not endanger ourself nor put on us unbearable burden and difficulties.

When we employ our mind to think everything that is good and beneficial for our self, for example, for our health, our peace, our wellbeing, we express our love to our self properly. We do not put ourself into trouble. The same principle is applied when we are to love our neighbour. We use our heart, our soul, our mind and our strength to love our neighbour too. The story about the good Samaritan fulfills the description of how to love our neighbour with all our heart, all our being, all our strength, and with all our mind. When we applied this principle dearly, we are fulfilling the first commandment too. Jesus said: “Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.” It is clear now that when we manage to love ourself properly and love our neighbour in the same way we love ourself, we have shown our love to God. Saint James said that it imposible to love God without loving our neighbour.

To love properly, we need to think correctly and wisely, to use our strength that we have (including our wealth, talent and heath) to act adequately, to involve our heart to guarantee the genuineness of our action of love, and we need our soul to enable us to actualize that call to love. A laziness to think, to follow the movement of our heart to show compassion, to use our strength help others and to show genuiness of our being is a transgression to that commandment. On the contrary, when we continue to love one another with brotherly love, live in harmony with one another, commit ourselves to support, protect, care for and show patience to one another, pass forgiveness, do not count each other’s faults, remain humble and not boastful towards others, we fulfill the commandments of God, glorifying God´s name, and simultaneously we show our love to God.