Exodus 22.20-26 | 1Tessalonians 1.5c-10 | Matthew 22.34-40

Dear sister, dear brother, here we are once again, gathered together with our beloved Church, beginning a new week in the love of Christ to nourish ourselves with His Word and the food par excellence of our faith: His Most Holy Body and Blood in the Eucharist. We find ourselves at the last weekend of October—a month during which we have, in a special way, renewed our missionary zeal and our love for praying the Holy Rosary.

For our reflection, the Church offers us today texts of profound wisdom and commitment. In the Gospel according to Matthew, we see the Pharisees approaching Jesus with the intention of setting a trap for Him, asking Him which is the greatest commandment of the Law. Originally, God gave us the Ten Commandments through Moses. However, over the centuries, the teachers of the Law added various prescriptions, eventually reaching a total of more than six hundred precepts. Just imagine how difficult it must have been to live under such a burden! That is why they wanted to see if Jesus’ teachings were in line with their own doctrine.

The Lord’s response is remarkably clear: He does not give us just one commandment, but two—because the second is just as important as, and similar to, the first. The first commandment is to love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is not a superficial love, nor is it merely a matter of obligation; it is a total surrender and an absolute devotion. It means worshipping the one true God, leaving no room for false divinities, and not allowing money, power, or disordered affections to occupy the throne of our hearts. Those who love God dedicate quality time to Him through prayer, Sunday Mass, and a genuine living out of their faith.

The second commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. As we recall, the Ten Commandments are divided into two tablets: the first three concern our vertical relationship with God, while the other seven relate to our horizontal relationship with our brothers and sisters. Jesus unites both dimensions in an inseparable way: there is no true love for God that does not necessarily involve love for one’s neighbor. As the Apostle John would later remind us, anyone who claims to love God—whom they cannot see—yet fails to love their brother or sister—whom they can see—is deceiving themselves. Love for one’s neighbor requires us to be honest, committed to the truth, gentle, and prepared to care for our families and the community.

This call to fraternal love is powerfully expressed in the first reading, from the Book of Exodus. The people of Israel had emerged from slavery in Egypt and were journeying through the wilderness toward the Promised Land—a land intended to be one of justice and freedom. God warns them not to repeat, in their new life, the abuses and oppression they endured in Egypt. For this reason, He demands that they show special care for the most vulnerable: the foreigner, the widow, and the orphan.

They are forbidden from exploiting the poor through usury or taking away the cloak that shields them from the cold of the night—for it is the only protection they have for their lives. Today, this group—those who hold a special place in God’s heart—is even broader: consider the homeless sleeping on our streets, abandoned children, families struggling to survive on the fringes of society, the elderly forgotten by their own kin, and those held captive by addictions. We cannot claim to love the Father if we close our hearts to the suffering of His children who are most in need.

Finally, in the second reading, the Apostle Paul expresses his joy as he writes to the Christians in Thessalonica. They welcomed the Word of the Lord with a holy joy—which is a fruit of the Holy Spirit—even amidst the great persecutions and tribulations imposed by the Roman Empire. By abandoning their idols to serve the living and true God, the Thessalonians became a model of faith and conversion for all the neighboring nations.

May we, too, prompted by the Holy Spirit, know how to tear down the false idols of the modern age and welcome the Word of God with joy. Let us live with our gaze fixed on Christ, loving God with our whole being and loving our brothers and sisters through concrete acts of mercy, solidarity, and justice.