Reflection
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment.
And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Matthew 22:34-40
When the Bible talks about love it primarily means a love that keeps on loving, it meanscommitment. We may have warm feelings of gratitude to God when we consider all that God has done for us, but it is not warm feelings that Jesus is demanding of us. It is stubborn, unwavering commitment. It follows then that to love one another, including our enemies, doesn’t mean we must feel affection for them, rather it means a commitment on our part to take their needs seriously, just as God committed to taking our needs seriously. This kind of love doesn’t come naturally. To love means deliberately to turn toward another person and their needs, to give away something of ourselves to someone else without thinking of what we will get in return. This kind of love/commitment is self-sacrificing. It is putting the other person first, whether it is God or our neighbor.
Vince Gerhardy
Prayer
Love one another as I have loved you.
Action
Who are those outside the circle of your love? What would commitment to their needs require of you? Who are in the circle of your love? Do you have this sort of commitment to them? What are the specific ways you can demonstrate love of neighbor at this time?
Suggested Reading
“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
He said to him,
“You shall love the Lord, your God,
with all your heart,
with all your soul,
and with all your mind.
This is the greatest and the first commandment.
The second is like it:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Matthew 22:34-40
Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
1 John 4:11
Jesus does not invent the second commandment, but takes it from the Book of Leviticus. The novelty is in his placing these two commandments together — love for God and love for neighbour — revealing that they are in fact inseparable and complementary, two sides of the same coin. You cannot love God without loving your neighbour and you cannot love your neighbour without loving God.
Pope Francis
He alone loves the Creator perfectly who manifests a pure love for his neighbor.
Venerable Bede
What is the mark of love for your neighbor? Not to seek what is for your own benefit, but what is for the benefit of the one loved, both in body and in soul.
St. Basil the Great
We can cure physical diseases with medicine but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more who are dying for a little love. Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So spread love everywhere you go.”
Mother Teresa of Calcutta
As for what concerns our relations with our fellow men, the anguish in our neighbor’s soul must break all precept. All that we do is a means to an end, but love is an end in itself, because God is love.
Edith Stein
To love our neighbor as ourselves is such a truth for regulating human society, that by that alone one might determine all the cases in social morality.
John Locke