Today’s readings: Click on today’s date at http://www.usccb.org/bible/
Greatest commandment
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent
Deuteronomy 4:8-9
What other great nation has rules and regulations as good and fair as this Law? Just make sure you stay alert. Keep close watch over yourselves. Don’t forget anything of what you’ve seen. Don’t let your heart wander off. Stay vigilant as long as you live. Teach what you’ve seen and heard to your children and grandchildren.
In his 1,096 page book Texas, James Michener carries the same families from 1535 through the late twentieth century. In 1789, a trueblood Spanish gentleman who lives in Bejar, Tejas (San Antonio, Texas) sounds reasonable when he insists that his granddaughter marry a full-blooded Spaniard, one born in Spain, not Mexico. It is imperative that she maintain the clean blood-line he and his ancestors defended with their lives. But things are changing, and she listens only with half an ear. She is enamored with a Frenchman. Her grandfather does not understand her.
Moses calls his people into the same tight circle of loyalty to their kind. And in Fiddler on the Roof we can see just one heartbreaking example of how this closed circle is applied thousands of years later, in a way that tears at everyone’s hearts. The love of parents and children, Jews and Christian, is ripped into shreds by Tevye’s determination to maintain the pure blood.
In both the Old and New Testaments, God extends his welcome to all people. But one consequence of these widespread arms is growing disagreement about what still matters. Jesus said, “No one jot or tittle of the Law is to be removed, until all things have taken place.” What “all things?”
Older generations almost always are convinced the foundations are crumbling. Younger generations inevitably push every limit. And the generations clash.
But when his daughter and Christian husband leave for Poland, Tevye mutters under his breath, “And God be with you …” He can’t help himself. He loves. This most important and valuable regulation of all, the law of all laws, he keeps.
Lord, you bless our children and our grandparents, and you send your word forth generation after generation into the world you have created. It does not ever return void. Our ancestors and descendants all belong to you, as do we. Teach us the ways of love.
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