Word to the Wise
Thursday, June 4, 2015 - Thursday in the 9th Week in Ordinary Time
[Tob 6:10-11; 7:1bcde, 9-17; 8:4-9a and Mark 12:28b-34]And when Jesus saw that he answere with understanding, he said to him, "You are not far from the Kingdom of God." [Mark]
JUNE 4, 2015 ST. PETER OF VERONA, O.P.
After several confrontations with every kind of Jewish religious authority in Jerusalem, including scribes, elders, chief priests, Pharisees, Sadducees and Herodians, a positive ray of hope shows up in one of the scribes. These folks had authority simply because they were able to read and write and knew the law. They also handled all kinds of correspondence and business transactions, etc. In today's gospel scripture, one of them comes to Jesus and asks a good question. Since there were 613 precepts in the Mosaic Law, how was one to know which ones were more important? Jesus replies with the commandments of love of God and neighbor. The scribe enthusiastically agrees, which leads Jesus to say, "You are not far from the Kingdom of God." [There may be some unintended irony here since the scribe is standing right in front of Jesus.] If the scribe wants to be in the Kingdom, all he has to do is to accept Jesus as the Messiah.
Our own Catholic tradition is rich and complex. The very size of the Catechism of the Catholic Church testifies to that! We can get all caught up in the liturgical or canonical webs and lose sight of the most important requirements of all: love of God and love of neighbor. In short, we can lose sight of the kingdom when we are standing in the middle of it! We owe the scribe a debt of gratitude for reminding us of the top priorities of our faith. AMEN
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