The question and response that we see in this week's gospel was a common form of scholarly debate in the Jewish tradition. The Pharisees ask Jesus which of the commandments is the greatest. Jesus responds by directly quoting the commandment from the ancient scriptures. His reply, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind,’ comes directly from Deuteronomy 6:4. Further, Jesus’ followup, ‘you must love your neighbour as yourself,’ comes from Leviticus 19:18. Deuteronomy and Leviticus are two of the first five books of the Bible that make up the Jewish Torah, or Law.

Jesus’ words call us to love our neighbour as ourselves. We are called to treat others as we would like to be treated ourselves. To be able to do this, we need to picture ourselves in their place – experiencing all that they are experiencing; not imposing our own values and circumstances. To see ourselves in the place of another is the key to responding with compassion. The origin of the word ‘compassion’ means experiencing with. If we are able to truly ‘experience with’ another person perhaps then we can genuinely recognise and respond to their needs. In our community, who are the ‘neighbours’ not loved as we love ourselves? What actions can we take to better love our neighbour as we love ourselves?