Thursday, January 3(16), 2025
1Pet. 4:1-11; Mk. 12:28-37                                       

A certain scribe asked the Lord: “Which is the first commandment of all?” The Lord answered: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.  And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these” [Mk. 12:28-31].  This can also be seen as a supplement to the picture of the hidden man of the heart [1Pet. 3:4].  If hallowing the Lord is the spirit of that inner man, then love of the Lord is his soul.  And as far as the members of his body are concerned, they are various virtues: this one is a hand, that one is a foot, or an eye, or an ear, and so forth.  Keeping that in mind is instrumental, because people sometimes mistake doing good for supreme virtue by itself, setting it as a goal, disregarding the Lord, forgetting love.

Such attitude towards doing good, without faith and desire to please God, cannot be holy; it is like a house which has not been blessed, or a room with no icon in it.  Doing good without love can be compared to a dark hall filled with lifeless statues, stale and musty.  Pay attention to this, and, having decided to develop a new man inside your soul, make sure that he has no blemish in the eyes of the Lord.

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