22 February 2027 · Syro-Malabar Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Latin Rite · Syro-Malankara Rite · മലയാളം
“you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” Mark 12:30
The third week of the Great Fast is often the hardest. The first fervour has cooled, Easter is still far off, and the fast can quietly turn into a list of rules kept with a tight jaw. Paul speaks straight into that danger. He uses an image his readers knew well: a married woman is bound to her husband while he lives, but if he dies she is free. In the same way, he says, “you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God.” The old life produced fruit “for death”; the new life belongs to the risen Christ. And he sums it up: “But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are slaves not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.” Our fasting can be kept in either way. It can be the old written code, counted and checked like a ledger, or it can be the new life of the Spirit, a heart that gives up small things because it belongs to Someone. In many parishes these weeks bring the Lenten retreat, the dhyanam: a few evenings of preaching, adoration and confession, when people who seldom come to church find a place at the back. Its whole purpose is to move us from the ledger to the Spirit.
In the Gospel a scribe, impressed by Jesus' answers, asks the question every religious person must face: “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answers with the prayer every pious Jew said morning and evening: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” He adds a second, which no one had asked for: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The scribe agrees wholeheartedly; to love God and neighbour, he says, “is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” Jesus looks at him and says, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” Not far is a beautiful word and also a warning. One can know the right answer and still stand at the door. The fast is not a burnt offering by which we pay God; it clears the heart so that love may have room. The Latin Church keeps today the feast of the Chair of St Peter, the apostle whose whole authority rests on one answer given by the lake: “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you” (John 21:15).
Theme: “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”
The new life of the Spirit, the two great commandments, and the scribe who was not far from the kingdom.
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” Deuteronomy 6:4–5
“you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” Mark 12:30
Apply: Say the first commandment each morning this week before you speak to anyone.
“A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:26
“But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are slaves not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.” Romans 7:6
Apply: Choose one Lenten practice you keep grudgingly, and offer it today as a gift of love.
“For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” Hosea 6:6
“When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that no one dared to ask him any question.” Mark 12:34
Apply: Take the step you have been postponing: confession, reconciliation, or a return to Sunday Qurbana.
The fast is not a ledger of rules but a heart set free to love.
Love God with everything, love your neighbour as yourself, and do not stay at the door.
Take-home resolution: Let one decision each day this week be made by the first commandment.
Dear friends, we are in the third week of the Great Fast, when good resolutions grow tired. Paul reminds us that we have died to the old law through the body of Christ, so that we may belong to the risen Lord and serve in the new life of the Spirit (Romans 7:4–6).
A fast can be kept like a ledger: so many days without meat, so many prayers counted. Or it can be kept like a love: small gifts offered by a heart that belongs to Christ. Only the second bears fruit for God.
A scribe asks Jesus which commandment is first. Jesus answers: you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength; and you shall love your neighbour as yourself (Mark 12:30–31).
The scribe understands, and Jesus tells him: you are not far from the kingdom of God (Mark 12:34). Let us not stay near the door. This week, let one choice each day be decided by love. Amen.
Children, Jesus said the most important rule is to love God with all your heart and to love others as you love yourself. Can you do one loving thing for God and one for someone at home today?
Lord Jesus Christ, you have freed us from the old written code and given us the new life of the Spirit. Do not let our fast become a ledger of rules, but a love that gives itself. Teach us to love the Father with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and our neighbour as ourselves, and do not leave us standing near the door of your kingdom, but bring us in. Amen.
Both readings ask what a commandment is for. Paul says that the baptized have died to the law as a way of being saved, and now serve God in the new life of the Spirit. In Mark a scribe asks Jesus which commandment comes first, and the two of them end in agreement: love of God and love of neighbour stand above everything else. Neither reading throws the law away. Both go to its heart. For the Great Fast the question is plain: do my fasting and prayer come from love, or only from duty?
Setting.
Paul writes to the Christians of Rome, probably from Corinth, around AD 57. In chapter 6 he has said that the baptized died to sin with Christ. Now he applies the same thought to the law of Moses, speaking “to those who know the law” (7:1). He is not attacking the law. A few verses later he says, “So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good” (7:12). His point is that the law, good as it is, cannot itself give the power to keep it.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“In the same way, my friends, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead” (7:4)
The body of Christ here is first his crucified body, into whose death we were baptized (6:3–4). The image is still marriage: the Christian life is above all belonging to a person, the Risen One.
“But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are slaves not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.” (7:6)
Paul still says “slaves”. Service has not ended, but its source has changed: not fear of a written code, but the Spirit living within us.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that the Old Law is holy, and that according to St Paul its special function is to denounce and disclose sin (CCC 1963). The New Law is the grace of the Holy Spirit given through faith in Christ (CCC 1965–1966). St Augustine wrote a whole treatise on this contrast, The Spirit and the Letter: the law commands, and grace gives the power to do what it commands (in substance). Paul speaks here about what can save us. He passes no judgement on the Jewish people or on their love of the Torah.
Setting.
Jesus is in the Temple in the last days before his Passion. A series of disputes has been running since 11:27: about his authority, about taxes, about the resurrection. This scribe, an expert in the Law, comes to him differently: he has listened and sees “that he answered them well”. Matthew and Luke tell of a similar question as a test (Matthew 22:35; Luke 10:25). Only Mark has this warm exchange.
Jesus answers with Scripture his hearers knew by heart. Deuteronomy 6:4–5 is the opening of the Shema, which devout Jews prayed morning and evening and pray still. Leviticus 19:18 gives the love of neighbour.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one;” (12:29)
Jesus begins with who God is, before he says what we must do. Love of God flows from faith in the one God. Both commandments he gives come from Israel’s own Scripture: he is opening up the treasure of his people, not replacing it.
“this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” (12:33)
The scribe says this inside the Temple. He stands in the line of the prophets: compare Hosea 6:6 and 1 Samuel 15:22. Worship is not rejected. Sacrifice without love is what is emptied of value.
“You are not far from the kingdom of God.” (12:34)
Praise, and also an invitation. The scribe has understood the commandment. What remains is the step toward the one who is speaking to him. The reader of Mark is left to ask whether he took it.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism takes this answer as the summary of our duties to God (CCC 2083) and of the whole Law (CCC 2196), and it reads the Shema as the foundation of faith in the one God (CCC 228). Pope Benedict XVI opens Deus Caritas Est by noting that Jesus united the command of love of God with that of love of neighbour (Deus Caritas Est 1).
If we have died to the law, do Christians still need the commandments?
Yes. Paul himself says that “love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:10). What has ended is the idea that a written code can save us by itself. The Catechism recalls that the Ten Commandments still bind Christians (CCC 2068), and the Spirit gives the strength to keep them from the heart.