Making Love For God Visible
A homily delivered by Fr. John Chong, SJ on Friday of the Third Week of Lent
13 March 2026
Friday of 3rd Week of Lent. March 13, 2026
A scribe once asked Jesus, “Which is the first of all the commandments?” Jesus answered, “The Lord our God is Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” And then he added, “The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
When I listen to Jesus’ answer, something strikes me as interesting. The scribe asked for the first commandment. Normally, when we ask a question like that, we expect just one answer. But Jesus gives two. Why did he do that? That is what I would like to reflect on today.
But first, let us ask why this question matters at all. Sometimes different commandments can seem to pull us in different directions. For example, we are told to keep the Sabbath holy. We are also told to honor our father and mother. But imagine that your parents are seriously ill and need care on a Sunday. In that situation, those two commandments might seem to conflict.
At moments like that, we need to know the deeper principle behind all the commandments. What is the heart of them all? If the heart of every commandment is love, then when two commandments appear to clash, love helps us decide what to do.
Now let us return to our original question. Why did Jesus give two commandments when he was asked one? It seems that, in the mind of Jesus, these two cannot be separated. And it is his conviction. Because this was clearly a conviction he had reflected on for a long time.
Love of God by itself can become empty. Love of neighbor by itself can lose its direction. Love of God that does not show itself in love for our neighbor becomes hollow. Our love for God must take flesh in our love for others. That’s why Jesus agrees clearly with what the scribe said: “To love your neighbor as yourself is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
The theologian Karl Rahner called this the principle of simultaneity. In this world we cannot love God while excluding our neighbor, and we cannot truly love our neighbor while excluding God. When we love God, we are at the same time loving our neighbor. And when we truly love our neighbor, we are also loving God.
Our neighbor becomes the path and the channel through which our love for God becomes real. “To love your neighbor as yourself is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” Today these words may sound familiar to us. But in the time of Jesus, they must have sounded quite revolutionary.
They remind us of the words of Pope Francis: “I prefer a Church that is bruised, hurting, and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church that is unhealthy from being closed in and concerned only with its own security.”
So today, let us ask for the grace to live this commandment. May this day be a day when our love for God becomes visible in the way we love the people around us.