Reflection
Reverence for creation comes fairly easily for most people. Reverence for other people presents more of a challenge, especially if those people’s lives happen to impinge upon our own. We have an easier time loving humankind than loving particular human beings. Particular human beings rarely do things the way we think they should do them, and when they prevent us from doing what we think we should be doing, we can run short on reverence for them. At its most basic level, the everyday practice of being with other people is the practice of loving the neighbor as the self. More intricately, it is the practice of coming face-to-face with another human being, preferably someone different enough to qualify as a capital “O” Other—and at least entertaining the possibility that this is one of the faces of God.
Adapted from Barbara Brown Taylor
Prayer
May I grow in love of neighbor.
Action
Who are the “others “in your life? How can you practice love of neighbor for these people?
Suggested Reading
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.
Matthew 22:37
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
Colossians 3:12-14
God, who is love, created us out of love, so that we can love others while remaining united to God. The two dimensions of love, for God and for our neighbor, in their unity, characterize the disciple of Christ.
Pope Francis
If we practice love of neighbor with great perfection, we will have done everything.
St.Teresa Of Avila
Examine your heart often to see if it is such toward your neighbor as you would like his to be toward you were you in his place. This is the touchstone of true reason.
St.Francis De Sales
There is no one who knows your many faults better than you! But you love yourself notwithstanding. And so you must love your neighbor, no matter how many faults you see in him.
Martin Buber
Love your neighbor as yourself. That’s what we need to adopt to be a better country.
Brandon Marshall
The litmus test of our love for God is our love of neighbor.
Brennan Manning
Faith is not limited to affirming the existence of God. No, faith tells us that God loves us and demands a loving response. This response is given through love for human beings, and that is what we mean by a commitment to God and to our neighbor. Gustavo Gutierrez
The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But … the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?
Martin Luther King Jr.
We are all spiritual beings and our calling is to love our neighbor, stand against injustice and to show compassion to all!
Timothy Pina
The love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say, What are you going through?
Simone Weil