the Lord is ONE

Thursday of Week 9 in Ordinary Time

“Jesus answered, ‘The first is: ‘Hear, O’ Israel, the Lord, your God, the Lord is one!’’”

(Mark 12:29)

Every time this text comes around in the lectionary I think of BoBo…Fr. Aurelius Boberick, OSB.  He taught Creed & Cult and St. Meinrad School of Theology and when he perused the classroom, which was mostly seminarians, he would say with sonorous dramatic flare “You say you want to be a priest…but you don’t SING!  Poppycock!”

He studied at Hebrew Union College in New York and if I remember correctly, he was also a visiting professor there.  It was his seminar course, Jewish Roots of Christian Liturgy, that really caught my imagination.  We began every class with a chanting of the Shema...the first two lines anyway.   I remember visualizing Jesus, awakening in the morning and wandering to the window to greet the day with this foundational prayer.   And I tried to remember to do the same as I went to sleep.

Sh'ma Yisra'eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad.

Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.

To remember that God is One is to keep idolatry creep (a serious and debilitating condition;) in check.  My guess is that for most of us idolatry creep happens as busyness and agenda unfold in our day.  Prayer in the morning is like beginning fresh at the beginning of the album.  Prayer in the evening is like lifting the needle on the turntable and starting all over again...

In an undertone: 

Barukh sheim k'vod malkhuto l'olam va'ed.

Blessed be the Name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever.

We also chanted this second line, which is the liturgical assembly’s response.

V'ahav'ta eit Adonai Elohekha b'khol l'vav'kha uv'khol naf'sh'kha uv'khol m'odekha.

And you shall love the Lord your God

with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

It is this line that Jesus quotes in today’s Gospel that adds the passion.  It guards against too much head.  Nothing about being human can be separated from the love of God.