From Exodus to the Rosary: the commandment that upholds the Law

The commandment that upholds the whole Law and the Prophets

What is the greatest commandment? A doctor of the law asks Jesus this question in this Sunday's Gospel, October 25, and the answer allows no degrees: you shall love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself. Everything else hangs from that, according to Matthew 22, 34-40. This Sunday's liturgy does not stop at theory: the first reading, from the book of Exodus, spells out what loving your neighbour means when it commands not mistreating the migrant, not exploiting the widow or the orphan, and not charging interest to the poor. Psalm 17 sets it to music: "I love you, Lord; you are my strength".

What today's Gospel says about the love of God and neighbour

The passage is a trap laid. The Pharisees, after Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, send a doctor of the law to put him to the test. The question was not innocent: the rabbis argued over which of the 613 precepts weighed most. Jesus' answer does not choose from the list, but sums it up in two inseparable loves. The first, to love God with all your heart, soul and mind. The second, like the first, to love your neighbour as yourself. And he concludes: on these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.

The connection with Exodus is the key that is often overlooked. The God invoked as strength is the same one who hears the cry of the oppressed: "if he cries out to me, I will hear him, for I am compassionate". Religion, the text suggests, is at stake in the defence of the poor. It is not a spiritual ornament, it is a legal obligation of the code of the Covenant.

The second reading: a community converted from idols

Paul, in the first letter to the Thessalonians, describes a community that welcomed the Word "in the midst of great tribulation, with the joy of the Holy Spirit" and became a model for Macedonia and Achaia. They abandoned idols to serve the living God and await the return of his Son. The text completes the picture: love of neighbour does not come from nowhere, it comes from a prior conversion.

The 10 pm Rosary and the promises of the Virgin

The liturgical day closes with the praying of the Holy Rosary at 10 pm, broadcast from Lourdes in Spanish, with litanies, the Salve and a sung Ave Maria. The call comes accompanied by the classic list of promises attributed to the Marian apparitions: protection, special graces, victory over vices and, at the extreme, the promise that "the soul who entrusts itself to me in the Rosary will not perish".

There is also an initiative circulating these days: the million rosaries, with specific intentions for the unity of Spain, the conversion of the country, young people and families. Prayer and public cause, once again intertwined.

Prayer without a list of requests

Against pure, hard petitionary prayer, something else is claimed: praying in order to have a relationship with God, speaking and listening, and reaching the point where there is no need to speak. "When love says everything", words are not even needed. The quote from St Isaac sums it up: in the Kingdom, the language will be silence.

In the end, this Sunday's Gospel leaves an uncomfortable question: if loving your neighbour upholds the Law, how much of what we call religiosity withstands the test of Exodus? Very little, if read slowly.