31st Sunday in Ordinary Time [B]
October 31, 2021
Mark 12:28-34

A few days ago, I gave a seminar on the rosary, and I received a tricky question, “What if our devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary make us love Mary than Jesus?” Honestly, my instinctive reaction was that our love for Jesus should be greatest to anyone or anything. I could not be wrong with that answer. However, the same question bothers me. If to love Jesus is the only thing matters, why should we love His Mother, why we should honor St. Joseph, His foster father, and why should we serve His Church? Then, I realized that with this logic, I could say that a husband does not have to love his wife totally, just Jesus; a mother does not have to take care of her children fully, just Jesus; a priest does not have to serve his people committedly, just Jesus. This logic may be misleading.

Today’s Gospel tells us Jesus, who teaches us the first of all commandments: To love God with all our hearts, with all our souls, with all our minds, and with all our strength, and secondly, to love our neighbors like ourselves. Interestingly, Jesus does not say only to love God with what we have is enough. He adds the second commandment: love our neighbors, and the Second Law is inseparable from the First Law. The key is that to love our neighbors is part and parcel of loving God.

Our love for the Blessed Virgin Mary, like our love for our family and friends, is not in opposition to Christ. St. Joseph, St. Padre Pio, St. Dominic are not competing with God in winning our loves. Our love for our neighbors is an expression of the love of Jesus. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, in his treatise ‘On the Love of God’, wrote that the highest kind of love is to love ourselves and others for God’s sake. To put it simply, the more we love the Blessed Virgin, the more we love our family, and the more we love Jesus. If we go deeper into the Bible, we will discover that God is love [1 John 4:8]. God is not competing with your family and friends and feeling jealous when sometimes you prioritize your kids. God is the love that binds us with our loved ones. The more we authentically love our neighbors, the greater God is our hearts.

How do we apply this truth in our daily lives? Indeed, there are times, we need to choose between God and other things, like the state. St. Thomas More, when he was about to be executed, said, “the king’s good servant, but God’s first.” Yet, these are exceptional cases. Most of the time, to love God and to love our neighbors go together. During Sundays, we can bring our children to the Church and worship together as a family. Every night, couples can spend time together in prayer of thanksgiving. In October, families, and communities can pray together the rosary. We are growing closer to each other, closer to our Mother, and even closer to God.

Valentinus Bayuhadi Ruseno, OP