There is no doubt then in the response given to the doctor of the law who asked Jesus: "Which is the great commandment in the law? In truth, the intention of the questioner was to trap Him. The law is the Word of God, therefore , each and every commandment is important. Can anyone grade the commands of God? This would mean judging the words and the intentions of God Himself!

Jesus is not taken aback. Every commandment that God gives us is the fruit of His love for us: our response for such love could not be anything else if not love. Love is to be the foundation of our obedience. The answer of Jesus is the same word every pious Jew prays every day, morning and evening. "Listen, O Israel, The Lord is our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength".

Jesus qualifies this commandment as the great and first commandment. The one from which all the others spring out. If you don’t love God, what kind of obedience are you to give Him? That one of a slave, out of fear or of the one who looks to avoid Him, to run and stay away from Him! If, on the other hand, you love Him, so you listen to Him, you look for Him, you will do all He wishes you to do and only obey what He commands! If you love Him, you commit yourself to make yours His intentions and His projects. If you love Him, you will let Him make out of you an instrument of His love for all the other creatures, in particular, towards the neighbour who suffer most.

Jesus completes this commandment joining to the first also a second one, because the life of the weak and the oppressed belong to God. This commandment doesn’t seem even new, but simply the other side of the first, like the other side of a coin, that could not have only one side. If you love and listen to God, you are to share in His attention to the orphan and the widow, to the stranger and towards the one who has no means to live upon. This is one of the commandments that return frequently throughout all the Holy Scriptures, both in those attributed to have been written by Moses and in those of the Prophets. If you honour God and love Him, you are to honour and love His image, man and woman, that bear His likeness.

You shall love…it resounds twice! All our faith turns around this word. Faith is alive and beautiful if there is love! Life is true, rich and joyful if there is love! Love is the same life of God, it’s His joy! His faithful one shall love and thus shall bring the light and the grace, the peace and the beauty, the joy and the security of the same life of God here on earth. But what is love? How does one love? Who knows how to truly love?

The answer to these questions come out slowly, come out more from experience than from reasoning. Our experience tells us that the one who knows how to love is the one who knows how to listen, who is careful to other’s needs, who takes at heart the pain of those who walk next to him, and to do so, forgets himself. Love excludes egoism and egocentrisim. In order to love truly, one needs to receive some training. One needs to learn to love, because we are naturally carried away to put ourselves first.

St. Paul proposes himself as a model to follow and to learn the true love for God and for all. His is happy that the Christians of Thessalonica have learnt from him and that now in turn they can become a model for others when they preach the Gospel. In fact its not enough to preach the Gospel with words, it is necessary to witness it by our lives so that it’s proclamation can be complete and can be accepted!

During this month, dedicated to prayer for the mission of the Church in the world, we can learn to live the double commandment of love, both as a fruit of welcoming the Gospel from our side, and also as a support for its proclamation everywhere and to every people!