Catholic lectionary for 7 November 2001

King James Version (en)

King James Version (en)

Romans, Chapter 13, verses 8-10

⁸ Love is the fulfilling of the Law

⁸Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.

⁹For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

¹⁰Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Read more:Romans, Chapter 13

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13

13:8 From our duty to magistrates he passes on to general duties. To love one another - An eternal debt, which can never be sufficiently discharged; but yet if this be rightly performed, it discharges all the rest. For he that loveth another - As he ought. Hath fulfilled the whole law - Toward his neighbour.

13:9 If there be any other - More particular.Commandment - Toward our neighbour; as there are many in the law.It is summed up in this - So that if you was not thinking of it, yet if your heart was full of love, you would fulfil it.

13:10 Therefore love is the fulfilling of the law - For the same love which restrains from all evil, incites us to all good.

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Luke, Chapter 14, verses 25-33

²⁵ Those who will be his disciples, to bear their cross, must make their accounts aforehand lest with shame they revolt from him afterward

²⁵And there went great multitudes with him: and he turned, and said unto them,

²⁶If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

²⁷And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.

²⁸For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?

²⁹Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him,

³⁰Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.

³¹Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand?

³²Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace.

³³So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.

Read more:Luke, Chapter 14

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14

14:26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father - Comparatively to Christ: yea, so as actually to renounce his field, oxen, wife, all things, and act as if he hated them, when they stand in competition with him. Mat 10:37.

14:28 And which of you intending to build a tower - That is, and whoever of you intends to follow me, let him first seriously weigh these things.

14:31 Another king - Does this mean, the prince of this world?Certainly he has greater numbers on his side. How numerous are his children and servants!

14:33 So - Like this man, who, being afraid to face his enemy, sends to make peace with him, every one who forsaketh not all that he hath -

By withdrawing his affections from all the creatures;
By enjoying them only in and for God, only in such a measure and manner as leads to him;
By hating them all, in the sense above mentioned, cannot be my disciple - But will surely desist from building that tower, neither can he persevere in fighting the good fight of faith.

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NOTES

Speaking of the relationships that bind those who live in the Kingdom, Paul returns to the Savior's words at the Last Supper and recalls love. The apostle is convinced that fullness lies precisely in it. Indeed, all the commandments were ultimately given so that...

Speaking of the relationships that bind those who live in the Kingdom, Paul returns to the Savior's words at the Last Supper and recalls love. The apostle is convinced that fullness lies precisely in it. Indeed, all the commandments were ultimately given so that those who follow them could make the right choice between good and evil; love presupposes that this choice has already been made. Therefore it is the one who loves his neighbor who reveals the fullness of the Law's fulfillment. Here the apostle evidently returns once more to the theme of the “living Torah” that a person seeking the Kingdom must become. For Paul, a “living Torah” is actually possible only there, for the Torah is to him an entirely objective reality. In Paul's time, it was generally accepted that the Torah had existed in God's design even before the creation of the world, and that in history it was merely revealed to God's people, who had likewise been conceived from the beginning.

This view is not far from the truth if we accept—and the Bible proceeds precisely from this premise—that the Torah describes the objectively existing dynamics and laws of the relationship between God and humanity. In that case it must have existed at least as long as humanity itself, and perhaps even longer, if we accept that God knew this dynamic in every detail even before He created humanity, a well-founded assumption. In that case the Torah cannot be reduced to commandments or laws alone. It is, above all, relationship: whether a person's relationship with God or his relationship with his neighbor.

Yet the fullness of relationship with both God and neighbor is necessary and possible precisely in the Kingdom. The love of which Jesus speaks, the love unknown to the world but permeating the Kingdom, constitutes the flesh, the spiritual substance, of such relationships; while the Torah, the inner Torah so widely debated in Paul's time, forms their structure. Only in the Torah does the spiritual substance of which the Kingdom consists find its form, while the Torah, in turn, finds only in the Kingdom the spiritual substance that allows it to become embodied. This takes place in and through the human person, for in the Kingdom everyone becomes a “living Torah,” just as the Savior Himself became one for those seeking the Kingdom. It is apparently this experience of life in the Kingdom that Paul has in mind when he says that the day is already dawning and salvation is near. Abstaining from excess here no longer looks even like an ascetic effort, but simply like a natural state—as natural as life in the Kingdom can be.

When speaking of the Kingdom, Jesus never tires of reminding His listeners that they still have to enter it and that this will not happen by itself. For the sake of the Kingdom one must leave everything behind and be ready to take up the cross. These words of the Saviour were perfectly clear: His listeners still remembered how...

When speaking of the Kingdom, Jesus never tires of reminding His listeners that they still have to enter it and that this will not happen by itself. For the sake of the Kingdom one must leave everything behind and be ready to take up the cross. These words of the Saviour were perfectly clear: His listeners still remembered how, a little over a century before the events of the Gospel, during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus in the then independent Judea, those who took part in an uprising against the government and demanded that the authorities strictly observe the norms of the Torah in the country were crucified. The rebels wanted one thing: the Kingdom, the kind they knew about, of course. And for its sake they gave up everything. Their ideas about it bore little resemblance to what Jesus speaks of, but He holds up their determination as an example to His listeners. They truly did leave everything behind.

Not like the characters in Jesus' parable who refuse to come to the feast, for reasons that might seem perfectly reasonable, but still refuse and lose what matters most. Their places are taken by those who have nothing in this world and no reason to decline. Is it a matter of priorities? Yes, of course, priorities too, but not priorities alone. It is no accident that Jesus speaks of a feast, of the first and the last, and of the places that many strive to occupy even at the risk of being driven from them.

The Kingdom is not a place, a structure or a hierarchy. The Kingdom is a state in which one can abide, but which one absolutely cannot, so to speak, fix in place, however much one may wish to do so. The desire to occupy better or worse places comes from this. For in the Kingdom there are, in fact, no good or bad places. There is only one criterion: is a person in his or her own place, in the very place God intended, or in one chosen personally because it seemed more suitable?

This also gives rise to the question: should one go to the feast or to the field just purchased? The wedding feast is a symbol of the Kingdom. If a person does not know which to choose, it means that he does not know what the Kingdom is. If he did know, it would never occur to him to compare the importance of the life he lives with anything he owns. Life is fullness, whereas a purchased field, possessions and even family are merely derivatives of that fullness. What matters here is not to confuse the part with the whole or the principal with the secondary. Only one thing can help us do this: the experience of the true life of the Kingdom, that very life which is salvation.

The Kingdom of God comes into this world, but a person must take a step toward it, for it is like a wedding feast to which everyone is invited, but not everyone...

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