Crannóggy Island

  The Scribe's Question A scribe asks Jesus which commandment is first of all. The question is not hostile; Mark tells us the man had listened well and asked in good faith. Jesus answers with two Old Testament texts woven into one (Deut. 6:4-5 and Lev. 19:18): "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:29-31) Jesus does not present two competing or independent commandments. The second arises from the first and cannot be understood apart from it. Matthew's version draws out the relation even more clearly. The second commandment, Jesus says, is like the first, and all the Law and the Prophets hang on the two together. That is not the language of two adjacent rul...

  Introduction There is an old parlour trick, beloved of diplomats and theologians alike. Ask whether the soup is too salty and receive, at generous length, a meditation on hospitality. The taste of the soup remains untouched. Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe has elevated this into an art form. Ask him whether an act is licit, and he will tell you about friendship. He does not change the subject; he changes its register (from proposition to atmosphere) and trusts, correctly, that most of us will find the atmosphere so pleasant we forget we came in with a question. Two documents make the case better than I could argue it cold: a homily preached in June at a Mass for two men marking fifty years together, and an essay on the Synod written for L'Osservatore Romano, in which the same manoeuvre is performed at greater length and, rather touchingly, with footnotes. The Mass itself is worth a sentence or two, since two accounts posted on it could not agree on what kind of sentence to giv...