The Law of Love

Who is my neighbor?

    Saint Luke was a disciple of St. Paul. It is not surprising, therefore, that he has relatively little use for the letter of the law and is much more concerned about compassion and the spirit of the law.

    The lawyer’s question,” What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” is typical in that it is wholly concerned with obligation and fulfillment of a law. But the lawyer does know the law, and his answer to Jesus’s own question is perfect.

     Then, moved by a desire to justify himself, he asks a second question, and it shows that he has not gotten to the bottom of the problem of love and that his grasp of the law he has quoted is superficial.

     It is clear that Christ does not reject Jewish tradition that the lawyer has just quoted to him from the book of Deuteronomy (6:5) and the book of Leviticus (19:18). On the contrary, Christ tells us that the attainment of eternal life is bound up with the concrete fulfillment of the twofold commandments of love for God and neighbor.

     The purpose of the parable is to shed light on what” neighbor” means. The priest and the Levite who pass by have no understanding of who their neighbor is. Jesus deliberately chooses a Samaritan, a person The Jews regard as heretic, to illustrate the true concept of “neighbor.”

 Sunday XIV Year C

From: The Liturgical Year

By Adrian Nocent OSB