“Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mk 12:29-31).
How do we actually live out this great commandment given to us by Jesus? How do we love God that we cannot see?
Our first step is to understand better the love that Jesus is talking about. St Thomas Aquinas teaches us that to love, is to will the good of the other. This is more than an emotion, mere sentiment, or a feeling. To love means to accompany, encourage, and be present to one another. The love that God offers us is unconditional, it is about service and sacrifice.
Jesus doesn’t just want us to maintain the Church, our family, our friends, or our ourselves, he has always called us to be a missionary Church, to go out from ourselves and love others as he loves us. The greatest joy of God is that his creation, his human beings are fully alive!
Many inside and outside of the Church have been wounded, yet her heartbeat is strong, because the lifeblood that flows through her veins comes from her Son, Jesus the Christ. So many of our brothers and sisters are walking away from the Church, but her children still hunger to be loved and to love, they still hunger to belong, to be a part of who God has created them to be. They have a curiosity and desire to learn and they want to know, to have their questions answered, and to find meaning and fulfillment.
If we are to be of help, we start by saying yes to the invitation of Jesus to receive the love of his Father. We are to kneel in his presence, sit at his feet, and allow the transforming love of the Holy Spirit to conform and shape us, to sculpt us in love. At the same time, we are called to learn and know our faith, recognizing that our belief is grounded in both faith and reason, so that we can share who we are as a child of God, and share what we have learned with others, with love, with joy, even in the midst of scandal and crisis. This is not a time to run away, but to stand up for what we believe in, to show, through our own life and commitment, that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.
Jesus Christ is the center of the Church. He is present in the Word proclaimed, in his Body and his Blood that we receive, in the Sacraments, and he is present in each and every one of us. If we are struggling to see or experience God, the best way to begin is to reach out toward another in love.
We are brothers and sisters in Jesus. We hunger and crave to belong to God and one another, whether we are aware of this hunger and thirst consciously or unconsciously, and this is true for the atheist as well as the mystic alike. Jesus invites us to be his disciples and we do so by loving God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength, and by loving our neighbor as ourself.
Being a disciple of Jesus is about surrendering ourselves to the love of God, receiving, embracing and being shaped by his loving hands. We are then to share his love and joy with others through invitation, hospitality, welcome; meeting our brothers and sisters where they are, as they are, with understanding, convicting when necessary although never condemning, being patient, and present. “Do not think that love in order to be genuine has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired” (St. Mother Teresa).
God loves us more than we can ever mess up. God helps us to see and know that we are not defined by our worst choices or mistakes. God loves us more than we can ever imagine. When we make the time to breathe deeply and slowly, we can receive, rest, and abide in his love. Allowing ourselves to be loved by God allows us to begin again and again.
Each person that we meet today, we will then have something to share; the love we have received. Not sure how or where to start? The easiest way I learned from Mother Teresa is that when you catch the eye of another, share a smile. In that very simple act, we say to another you matter to me, you have dignity, worth, value, you are important, and I love you.
Photo: St. Mother Teresa not only loved through her smile, but in her words and actions. We can be like her not by doing great things, but little things with great love.
Spiritual Stepping Stones