HOW ARE WE DOING? HOW AM I DOING?

“A scholar of the law asked Jesus, ‘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. . . .
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”  Matthew 22:34-39

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A commandment is like a doctor’s prescription.  Jesus’ prescription is:

• Love God with every fiber of our beings
• Love ourselves and everyone else equally.

That’s it!

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EXAMINE
Stop for a moment and place yourself in the presence of our ever-present God. Ask Him: How am I doing?

LOVABLE, LOVED AND LOVING
May we remember that it is only because our God, Love Itself, breathed His life into us that we are able to love.

With that breathing of God’s own life into us, we each received Love Itself.  And we humans are designed, also by God, with the capability of loving others.  What marvelous, to-be-treasured gifts to us humans!  We breathed in God’s love and we can breathe out God’s love.

FIRST, REMOVE THE OBSTACLES TO LOVING
In this Gospel we are told we must love, not just those we find easy to love, but everyone:  God, ourselves and our neighbors.

How does one do that?

I suggest that we try to do this by training our minds to see people – every single person, even God, even ourselves and our neighbors – as God sees them.  That mode of seeing a person as God sees them creates in us a precondition for true love for that person.  And being filled with true love is the precondition for true and lasting joy and happiness.

When we do this, life becomes more real to us. The artificial barriers we have set up, to protect ourselves or to distance ourselves from others, begin to shrink and eventually disappear.

THEN, PRAY AND LOVE TOGETHER
“I love you, O LORD, my strength, my rock.” Psalm 18 

On this weekend when together we will be sing “I love You, Lord, my strength, my strength”, whether at home or in church, be it at 5:30 or 7:30 or 9:30 or noon, let us join together in mind, heart and voice. Let us be together; let us love together; let us sing together; let us ask together for help with opening our hearts to love – love of God, ourselves and all our neighbors.

 

Sister Loretta