From the responsorial psalm: "I love you, O LORD, my strength, O LORD, my rock, my fortress, my deliverer. I love you, Lord, my strength."

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Mark (Mk 12:28b-34)

The scribe said to him, "Well said, teacher. You are right in saying, 'He is One and there is no other than he.' And 'to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself' is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

A scribe approaches Jesus, encouraged to hear more of what he says. The scribe asks Jesus which commandment is the most important of all. Jesus responds by quoting the Shema: "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 he tells the scribe, the second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. In acknowledging the response Jesus gives, he affirms that loving God and one’s neighbor is more important than burnt offerings and sacrifices. Jesus tells him: "You are not far from the kingdom of God." And no one, Mark tells us, dared to ask Jesus any more questions. What does Jesus mean by telling the scribe he is not far from the kingdom of God, and what does it mean to be near to it?

God, help me understand the commandments not as legal ties that bind but your gift to allow a wholehearted response to your love. To love you with my whole heart, soul, mind, and strength is to begin to understand the love by which you loved me first. What other gift is acceptable to you, Lord, but my whole heart? I wonder at the words of Jesus to the scribe, why the scribe is "not far from the kingdom of God" when he seems to fully understand. Yet, I see my own distance from the kingdom when I fail altogether to love you and those around me. Give me the grace, Lord, to bring forth your kingdom in these two great commandments, not by my own doing but with the help of the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ your Son.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.