Shrine Basilica of Our Lady of Health Vailankanni

When our Master was asked which was the greatest of the commandments, he replied: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your strength. There is no other commandment greater than this” (Mk 12:30-31). I think so, too, since it concerns primary and essential Being, God our Father, through whom all things were made, all things remain in being, and to whom all who are saved will return. He it is who loved us the first, who gave birth to us. It would be sacrilege to think there exists any being more ancient or more wise. Our thanksgiving may be insignificant compared to his great gifts, yet we cannot offer him any other recognition, he who is perfection itself and has no need of anything. Let us love our Father with all our strength and ardor of soul and we shall win immortality. The more we love God, the more is our nature incorporated and mingled with his own. The second commandment, Jesus says, yields in nothing to the first: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (...) When the scholar of the Law asks Jesus: “And who is my neighbor?” (Lk 10:29), he does not reply by giving the Jewish definition of neighbor – family, fellow Jews, proselytes, those who live according to the same Law – but tells the story of a traveler who was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. Wounded by robbers (...), the man was cared for by a Samaritan who “showed himself a neighbor” (v. 36). And who is even more of a neighbor to me than our Savior? Who showed more compassion to us when the powers of darkness had left us battered by blows? (...) Jesus alone knew how to heal our wounds and root out the evils planted in our hearts (...). That is why we should love him just as much as we love God. And loving Christ Jesus is to carry out his will and keep his commandments.

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Saint Clement of Alexandria (150- c.215) theologian Homily “ Can the rich be saved?”

Saint Clement of Alexandria (150- c.215)

The two commandments

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