“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” (Mark 12:30)
Saint Gregory of Nyssa offers the following insight on these verses from today's Gospel:
“Human life consists in a threefold unity. We are taught similarly by the apostle in what he says to the Ephesians, praying for them that the complete grace of their “body and soul and spirit” may be preserved at the coming of the Lord. We use the word “body,” for the nutritive part, the word for the vital, “soul,” and the word “spirit” for the intellective dimension. In just this way the Lord instructs the writer of the Gospel that he should set before every commandment that love to God which is exercised with all the heart and soul and mind. This single phrase embraces the human whole: the corporeal heart, the mind as the higher intellectual and mental nature, and the soul as their mediator.” (On the Making of Man, 8)
Pour your grace into our hearts,
we pray, O Lord,
that we may be constantly
drawn away from unruly desires
and obey by your own gift
the heavenly teaching you give us.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
we pray, O Lord,
that we may be constantly
drawn away from unruly desires
and obey by your own gift
the heavenly teaching you give us.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Glory to You Father, Son and Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning is now
and will be forever. Amen.
as it was in the beginning is now
and will be forever. Amen.
