Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

AMBROSE:

The law says, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God.” It did not say “speak” but “hear.” Eve fell because she said to the man what she had not heard from the Lord her God. The first word from God says to you, “hear.”¹

GREGORY OF NYSSA:

If one does not love God with all his heart and with all his soul, how can he care wholesomely and guilelessly for the love of his brothers, since he is not fulfilling the love of the One on whose account he has a care for the love of his brothers? The person in this condition, who has not given his whole soul to God and has not participated in his love, the craftsman of evil finds disarmed and easily overpowers.²

AMBROSE:

It is a noble thing to do one’s kindnesses and duties toward the whole of the human race. But it is ever more seemly that you should give to God the most precious thing you have, that is, your mind, for you have nothing better than that. When you have paid your debt to your Creator, then you may labor for humanity, to show them kindness and to give help. Then you may assist the needy with money, or by some duty or some service that lies in the way of your ministry; by money to support him; by paying a debt, so as to free him that is bound; by undertaking a duty, so as to take charge of a trust, which he fears to lose, who has put it by in trust.³

AUGUSTINE:

For while there remains any remnant of the lust of the flesh, to be kept in check by the rein of continence, God is by no means loved with all one’s soul. For the flesh does not lust without the soul, although it is the flesh which is said to lust, because the soul lusts carnally. In that perfect state the just man shall live absolutely without any sin, since there will be in his members no law warring against the law of his mind. But wholly will he love God, with all his heart, with all his soul and with all his mind, which is the first and chief commandment.⁴

CASSIODORUS:

As the law teaches, “You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart and your whole soul.” But the person who puts his entire hope in the Lord also praises with his whole heart. He does not put his trust in the transient consolations of the world, once he has trained himself on the Lord with total purity of mind.⁵

EPHREM THE SYRIAN:

In the house of Levi, because “they became priests without an oath,” they did not last; he, on the contrary, lasts forever. In fact, it cannot happen that he speaks falsely about the oath, because he said, “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘You are a priest forever’ ” of the priests according to the order of Melchizedek. And “Jesus Christ” was “a much better” mediator than the former priests in that thing, which he promised us through the New Testament.
While before it was necessary that the priests were many, because death interrupted the older ones in the course of their office and they did not last forever, now there is no other high priest with our Lord, “who lives forever to make intercession for us,” not in the victims of the sacrifices but in prayers.
“And he is able for all time to save us,” not in the earthly delights, which nourish us for a few days, but “when we draw near to God through him” in eternity.
“It was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, blameless, unstained, separated from sinners … who had no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices first for his own sins and then for those of the people; he did this once for all when he offered up himself,” not for him but for the sins of humankind.
“The law appointed” weak “men as high priests” who certainly needed to offer sacrifices for their sins. “The word of the oath,” however, “which” was provided in David “later than the law, appointed the Son” who remains “perfect forever.”⁶

BASIL:

It is not the privilege of any chance person to go forward to the perfection of love and to learn to know him who is truly beloved, but of him who has already “put off the old man, which is being corrupted through its deceptive lusts, and has put on the new man,” which is being renewed that it may be recognized as an image of the creator. Moreover, he who loves money and is aroused by the corruptible beauty of the body and esteems exceedingly this little glory here, since he has expended the power of loving on what is not proper, he is quite blind in regard to the contemplation of him who is truly beloved.⁷

BASIL:

The expression, “with the whole,” admits of no division into parts. As much love as you shall have squandered on lower objects, that much will necessarily be lacking to you from the whole.⁷

PSEUDO-CLEMENT:

So then, brothers, let us acknowledge him in our actions by loving one another, by not committing adultery or slandering one another or being jealous, but by being self-controlled, compassionate and kind. And we ought to have sympathy for one another, and not be avaricious. By these actions let us acknowledge him, and not by their opposites.⁸

BEDE:

Neither of these two kinds of love is expressed with full maturity without the other, because God cannot be loved apart from our neighbor, nor our neighbor apart from God. Hence as many times as Peter was asked by our Lord if he loved him, and attested his love, the Lord added at the end of each inquiry, “Feed my sheep,” or “feed my lambs,” as if he were clearly saying: “There is only one adequate confirmation of whole-hearted love of God—laboring steadily for the needy in your midst, exercising continuing care of them.”⁹

AUGUSTINE:

This virtue consists in nothing else but in loving what is worthy of love; it is prudence to choose this, fortitude to be turned from it by no obstacles, temperance to be enticed by no allurements, justice to be diverted by no pride. Why do we choose what we exclusively love, except that we find nothing better? But this is God, and if we prefer or equate any creature with God, we know nothing about loving ourselves. We are made better by approaching closer to him than whom nothing is better. We go to him not by walking, but by loving. We will have him more present to us in proportion as we are able to purify the love by which we draw near to him, for he is not spread through or confined by corporeal space; he is everywhere present and everywhere wholly present, and we go to him not by the motion of our feet but by our conduct. Conduct is not usually discerned by what one knows but by what one loves; good or bad love makes good or bad conduct.¹⁰

CALLISTUS:

My brothers, shun not only the holding, but even the hearing, of the judgment that bans mercy. For mercy is better than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.¹¹

1. DUTIES OF THE CLERGY 1.2.7.  Lienhard, J. T., & Rombs, R. J. (Eds.). (2001). Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy (p. 283). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
2. ON THE CHRISTIAN MODE OF LIFE.  Lienhard, J. T., & Rombs, R. J. (Eds.). (2001). Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy (p. 284). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
3. DUTIES OF THE CLERGY 1.50.262.  Lienhard, J. T., & Rombs, R. J. (Eds.). (2001). Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy (p. 284). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
4. ON THE PERFECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTEOUSNESS 819.  Lienhard, J. T., & Rombs, R. J. (Eds.). (2001). Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy (pp. 284–285). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
5. EXPOSITION OF THE PSALMS 85:12.  Lienhard, J. T., & Rombs, R. J. (Eds.). (2001). Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy (p. 285). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
6. COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.  Heen, E. M., & Krey, P. D. W. (Eds.). (2005). Hebrews (pp. 118–119). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
7. EXEGETIC HOMILIES, HOMILY 17.  Oden, T. C., & Hall, C. A. (Eds.). (1998). Mark (Revised) (p. 164). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
8. 2 CLEMENT 3.4.  Oden, T. C., & Hall, C. A. (Eds.). (1998). Mark (Revised) (p. 165). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
9. EXPOSITION ON THE GOSPEL OF MARK 2.22.  Oden, T. C., & Hall, C. A. (Eds.). (1998). Mark (Revised) (p. 165). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
10. LETTER 155, TO MACEDONIUS.  Oden, T. C., & Hall, C. A. (Eds.). (1998). Mark (Revised) (pp. 165–166). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
11. THE SECOND EPISTLE TO ALL THE BISHOPS OF GAUL 6.  Oden, T. C., & Hall, C. A. (Eds.). (1998). Mark (Revised) (p. 166). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.