Not Far from the Kingdom!

Friday, March 28, 2025

Hos 14:2-10; Mk 12: 28-34

Today’s Gospel highlights that spirituality is reconciling the knowing and living dimensions. 

When the scribe asks Jesus about the first of all commandments, he gives the greatest of all. 

How does Jesus establish that love of God and love of neighbors are the greatest of all?

It is here that Jesus unites both the knowing and living dimensions. 

We may know what is good. But such knowing mandates living out what we know in theory. In other words, knowledge without the will to act upon it is powerless and empty. 

However, when we emphasize the living dimension, we cannot undermine the knowing dimension too precisely because we cannot live out what we do not know. 

Love of God and love of neighbors as a result of loving the Good Lord is greater than all that the law commands in terms of sacrifices and burnt offerings.  

This is how Jesus helps us realize the need to bridge both the knowing and living dimensions. When he finds the scribe demonstrating a greater understanding toward uniting both dimensions, Jesus hails him, saying, ‘You are not far from the Kingdom of God.’ 

Let us pray that we may be inspired to adore God through our actionable faith.

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar