Homily for the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A (2026) - Fr Paul Rowse, OP

Among the reasons why the Lord twins these commandments is surely that together they are the way of heaven, the way things are in heaven. Yes, there were the early debates among thorny scholars about the greatest commandment: whether it is God, our parents, or our neighbour who came first is indeed behind the interlocutors' question. The Lord ends that speculation by providing not one but two commandments. And yet, the end of that speculation identifies a new way of living.

The very question put to the Lord itself contains a way out: a commandment, any commandment, which is identified as the greatest will have a neighbour. And so, instead of poring over texts with nought but a candle for company, there is to be pouring out of self for those with the capacity to love. Our New Moses is here, pushing his interlocutors towards heaven. For it is by love that we gain sight of heaven.

The link between the two commandments is their agreeable wording: "You shall love." Like a crossword, in which One Across and One Down begin with the same letter, the way of life for which we were created and redeemed stretches out from love. We can have a legal system; we can pursue justice, with love as the abiding concern.

Thus, the reduction in this debate will be corrected by the twin commandments. And our tendency towards excess in one aspect will be bent back towards the middle by the other. Too much of a certain kind of love for God is fanaticism, and so we must love our neighbour. Too much of a certain kind of love of neighbour is activism, and so we must love God.

The Apostle will go on to say that love is the fulfilment of the law because it does no wrong to our neighbour. We know about our neighbour from other parts of Scripture. Our First Reading directs us towards the poor. Certainly they are to be helped as much as if it was we who were doing the asking. Those who have no one to rely on are indeed our concern.

In addition to the stranger, the widow, and the orphan, there is another neighbour of ours who is to be loved, and he is Christ. The Son of God entered a stranger to his own creation, a widower from his own covenant, orphaned from his Father's glory to save us. It is the Word in our flesh who breaks us away from idolatry to be converted to God, to be converted to the way of God.

Christ is seen to be neighbour especially now to his opponents. The shadow of the cross is falling across their faces. In the last weeks, we have heard useless questioning from Herodians and Sadducees, and now Pharisees, each addressed with the loving concern of the best of teachers. Each point of teaching has entailed an answer which corrects the hostile questioner, an answer which castigates the opponent into a new relationship with their master. And this one is no different.

In this case, the Pharisees will hear themselves addressed by the Lord's reply. These too must re-learn the law, which is observed not by prudential reduction but through heavenly aspiration. And so, he answers their question without an introduction. He does not say something like: "This is the first commandment...". Rather, deploying the imperatives of the commandment itself, these Pharisees are taught how to approach Christ, their neighbour: "You shall love ... this is the greatest." Before them stands God their neighbour, their way and their hope, whom they have addressed as but "teacher". But this is the New Moses, and if they would but love him, they would have sight of heaven while yet on earth.

And so it must be for us, who have allied ourselves to the Kingdom, made ourselves the subject of its Lord: as with the opponents, we have yet to keep these commandments perfectly, but we shall aspire to do so. We approach the Eucharistic table and the cross from which it is made so as to grow in love of God and neighbour. Christ is neighbour also to us, and loves us back into his life.

It will be crucial then that we identify those whom we do not love as we ought. We shall scan through our day-to-day lives to see who, like the stranger, widow, and orphan, must rely on themselves, and have them now rely on us. We shall be for them, do for them, what we would have them be and do for us. This, so that in you, they may see Christ our neighbour and so together with them gain sight of heaven.

Fr Paul Rowse, OP is Visiting Assistant Professor of Sacred Scripture at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, Washington DC.