Two Loves and One Focus!

Friday, August 21, 2026

Ez 37: 1-14; Mt 22: 34-40

Today’s Gospel highlights two loves and one focus. 

It is interesting to note that while the scholar of the law demands the greatest commandment in the law, Jesus gives two. It is about two loves: love of God and love of neighbors. For Jesus, though love of God and love of neighbors are distinct, they are inseparable. Together they form one focus, one way of life. 

We must see that though Jesus talks of two loves, the right focus for him is the love of God. In Jesus’ view, that is the right side up of our lives because the love of God offers the right measure for loving our neighbors. For this reason, love of God is always joined with the love of neighbors. 

If love of God is foundational, Jesus underlines love of neighbor as its extension. We must love others as God has loved us. And we must love others as we love ourselves. Christian teaching holds that there is no one we have a right not to love. Anyone who comes across our path of life is our neighbor, and we owe this ‘debt of love’ in God’s name. 

However, we must not think or conclude that love of God and love of neighbors are two competing priorities. They are two expressions of the same Christian love. Hence, the focus is love. When we love God, we also love what God loves. Hence, love of our neighbors originates from love of God.

This is why the Church Fathers combined the two loves when they instructed the early Church. St. John Chrysostom preached on Matthew 25:31-46, saying, ‘Because he is a poor man, feed him; because Christ is fed, feed him.’ Again, ‘Do you really wish to pay homage to Christ’s body? Then do not neglect him when he is naked. At the same time that you honor him here with hangings made of silk, do not ignore him outside when he perishes from cold and nakedness.’

For St. Augustine, there is a hidden but real identity between Christ and the Christian. Hence, he called on the Christian community to assist the needy: ‘For consider, brethren, the love of our head. He is in heaven, yet he suffers here, as long as his Church suffers here. Here Christ is hungry, here he is thirsty, is naked, is a stranger, is sick, is in prison. For whatever his body suffers here, he has said that he himself suffers.’

Let us pray that we may encounter Christ in the needy humanity and treat it with the same love, compassion, and respect that we desire for ourselves.

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar