November 3, 2024.
“Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, “Which is the first commandment of all?” Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mark 12, 28-31)
One of the many traps which have ambushed – and sometimes caught – Catholics in these post Vatican Council II years, has been to try and separate the love of God from the love of your neighbor. For awhile, love for God was shown as competing with love for fellow men, it was even said that if one loved your neighbor by love of God, in reality one didn’t love your neighbor. This way tried to reduce the root of love, the religious motivation. With no other reason except the love of man for man, that love soon began to languish, beginning to stop loving those who weren’t affable, enemies, disagreeable people, those from another country, culture or religion.
On the other hand those who have weathered this test, have become strengthened in love for their neighbor, because when the human motive for love was no longer sufficient, there was still the huge reservoir of divine reason. If you don’t do things for him – God tells us referring to our fellow man – do it for me. It is a question of, well, understanding that there is only one commandment: that of love. And that this one commandment has two inseparable dimensions: God and man. You can’t love the first without loving the second and vice versa. Love of God precedes love of fellow man, since it is its root, its nourishment, its source of continual renewal. Love of one’s fellow man, on the contraire, is proof that our love of God is real and not just rhetoric.
Intentions: Love your neighbor and, above all when it is difficult, remember that we have a great debt with God that we should pay doing good deeds even for those who don’t deserve it.