Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the Day

RB: Ch 18:20-25

Mass: Ex 22:20-26; Resp Ps 18; Th 1:5c-10; Mt 22:34-40

I love you, Lord, my strength.

HEART OF JESUS, FULL OF GOODNESS AND LOVE,

HAVE MERCY ON US.

This is the greatest and the first commandment, Jesus tell us: You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. And the second is like it, says the Lord: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. When I hear this passage, I think of something Cardinal Basil Hume once said: "Always think of God as your lover. Therefore He wants to be with you, just as a lover wants to be with the beloved. He wants your attention, as every lover wants the attention of the beloved. He wants to listen to you, as every lover wants to hear the voice of the beloved. If you turn to me and ask, 'Are you in love with God?' I would pause, hesitate and say, 'I am not certain. But of one thing I am certain-that He is in love with me'" (The Mystery of Love, p. 22). 

Then I pause to ponder that same question: "Am I in love with God?" And it occurs to me that certainly God must be in love with me when I consider the unconditional love, mercy, compassion, and patience Jesus bestows upon me. How could I not, then, be in love with God. How could I not love the Lord, my God with all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my mind. The truth is that this pilgrim in via wavers. What a pity. On the other hand, perhaps this is a reason Saint Benedict has the greatest and first commandment with the second greatest as the first tools for good works. "First of all," our Holy Father writes, "love the Lord God with your whole heart, your whole soul and all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself" (RB 4:1-2). First of all, yes, first of all. After this, I am better equipped to put into practice, in word and deed, the other tools for good works. Indeed, "your way of acting", writes St Benedict, "should be different from the world's way; the love of Christ must come before all else" (RB 4:20-21).

Just as God loves Himself in us and we have learned to love in ourselves only God, so we begin to love our neighbor as ourselves. For in our neighbor we love God.

(William of St Thierry)

We do not exist for ourselves alone, 

and it is only when we are fully convinced of this fact

 that we begin to love ourselves properly

 and thus also love others.

What do I mean by loving ourselves properly?

I mean, first of all, desiring to live, accepting life as a very great gift and great good,

not because of what it gives us,

but because it enables us to give to others.

(Thomas Merton)

© Gertrude Feick 2020