3rd Sunday of Lent, Year B
As we continue our spiritual journey this Lenten season, the Church reminds us this Third Sunday of Lent of the Ten Commandments (the Decalogue) as a guide to help us focus on our call to discipleship. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that the gift of (the Ten Commandments) or the Decalogue is bestowed from within the covenant concluded by God with his people. God's commandments take on their true meaning in and through this covenant. In fidelity to Scripture and in conformity with Jesus' example, the tradition of the Church has always acknowledged the primordial importance and significance of the Decalogue. The Decalogue forms an organic unity in which each "word" or "commandment" refers to all the others taken together, so to transgress one commandment is to infringe the whole Law (cf. James 2:10-11). Hence, the Decalogue which contains a privileged expression of the natural law, is made known to us by divine revelation and by human reason and in their fundamental content, state grave obligations.
The Ten Commandments was summarized in the gospel of Saint Matthew 22:36-40 when Jesus was asked ‘"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law? Jesus replied: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." Hence, the first three of the Ten Commandments emphasizes the love of God and the remaining seven commandments emphasizes the love of neighbor.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, do we truly and sincerely love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind? Do we have other gods besides Him? Have we made other idols for ourselves unknowingly and bowed down before them or worshipped them? Do we take the name of the Lord, our God, in vain or made Him less important or insignificant in our lives? Do we keep the sabbath day holy and special for and to the Lord? Do we really love our neighbors as ourselves? Do we honor our father and our mother? Do we kill others with our gossips about them, evil words to them, bad thoughts about them and our inhuman actions towards them? Do we commit adultery, steal from others, and bear false witness against our neighbors? Do we covet our neighbor’s house, wife or property? Take a moment this week to read today’s First Reading from the Book of Exodus 20:1-17 again and meditate on it. Find out how you can faithfully live out the commandments of God. Then let the zeal of being a better disciple of Christ consume you to make changes in your spiritual life and go forth to proclaim your love for God by loving your neighbors. Amen!
