Christ the Cornerstone
Love of God cannot be separated from love of neighbor
(En Espanol)
In the Gospel reading for the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Mt 22:34-40), one of the Pharisees, “a scholar of the law” asks Jesus: “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” (Mt 22:36). St. Matthew tells us that this is another attempt to trap Jesus, to trick him into saying something controversial or even blasphemous.
Once again, Jesus refuses to play word games or to fall into a trap set by his enemies. Jewish scholars identify 613 laws or commandments in the Torah. These are commonly divided into 248 positive commandments—things one is commanded to do—and 365 prohibitions—things one is commanded not to do. Instead of choosing one of these commandments, our Lord responds by focusing on the meaning of the law itself—Love—in its inseparable dual aspect of Love of God and Love of Neighbor. The greatest commandment, Jesus says, is the Law of Love:
You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments. (Mt 22:37-40)
Nothing is more important than love, but for this very reason it is essential that we understand what love really means and that we reject all false and self-serving definitions of love.
Every human person bears God’s goodness and dignity. To love God is to love what God has created and loves. To love our neighbor is not merely an additional moral duty; it is a response to the divine image and goodness present in every person. Christian charity—agapē—means seeking another’s good without demanding repayment, because the other person is intrinsically valuable and lovable.
Love of God cannot be separated from love of neighbor. Jesus presents them as two aspects of one movement of authentic love. By joining them together and giving them equal importance, Jesus shows that authentic love of God necessarily expresses itself in love for other people.
St. Thomas Aquinas defines love primarily as “to will the good of another.” In his teaching, love is not merely a feeling; it is an act of the will by which one desires and seeks another person’s good. Authentic love is therefore a rational and free movement toward the good of another, grounded in the recognition of that person’s goodness and ordered ultimately toward God, the supreme Good. Love of God and love of neighbor belong together: loving God opens us to love others as God loves them, while loving our neighbor helps us grow in love of God.
This differs from other forms of love. Affection (storgē), friendship (philia), and romantic love (eros) can all be good, but Christian charity makes the good of the other primary. Too often our secular culture defines love as a form of self-gratification that involves pleasant feelings, mutual benefit, or romantic attraction. This is not the love that Jesus taught us by his words and his example.
Love of neighbor tests whether our claimed love of God is genuine. The first letter of St. John (1 Jn 4:20-21) states this with exceptional clarity:
If anyone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar, because one cannot love the unseen God while refusing to love the person one can see. (1 Jn 4:20)
The visible neighbor becomes the concrete test of an otherwise invisible relationship with God. This is what we mean by Christian charity (agapē).
God’s own nature is self-giving love. Jesus reveals God as unconditional love—the merciful Father who welcomes the prodigal son, forgives sinners, and even loves enemies. Therefore, to love God is not merely to feel devotion or perform religious practices; it is to be gradually transformed into the kind of person who shares God’s compassion, forgiveness, mercy and generosity.
When Jesus says that the whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments, he is revealing the fundamental truth about his own life and ministry. Out of love and obedience to his Father, the second person of the Holy Trinity took on our humanity. He “willed the good of another” (all of us who are made in the likeness of God), and he showed us by his passion, death and resurrection what love is really all about. What the Old Testament (the law and the prophets) commanded was fulfilled perfectly in the self-sacrificing love of Jesus, who for our sakes died a humiliating and painful death on a cross.
God himself demonstrates the truth that love of God and love of neighbor cannot be separated. †