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Theo Tigno•
8/18/2011 2:10 pm
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Friday, August 19th 2011 |
Matthew 22: 34-40
When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a scholar of the law, tested him by asking, "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. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments."
Dawg's Thought:
Today's prayer intention - for those who are trying to conceive.
Love. It sounds nice. In today's reading, though, we are commanded to go beyond nice.
We are called to love beyond ourselves, which is difficult to know in a world that trains us to focus on the self. Christ calls us to go beyond our desires and love God with our whole beings. Christ calls us to love our neighbor on the same level as we love ourselves. Christ calls us to love beyond the self.
We should be charitable to each other, but never at the expense of God's ways instituted from the beginning. We should love each other beyond being "nice" because our love for God. We should love each other beyond being "nice" because we would hope that others would love us versus being simply "nice" to us.
One thing that is absent in today's reading is loving in proportion to how we are loved. It's a good thing because how could we ever reciprocate God's love for us? We can never be as perfect in love as God is perfect in love. This gives us the freedom to be indifferent in love; to love regardless of how much others hurt us.
We are commanded to love ... beyond ourselves ... beyond the selfish barrier of "nice" ... beyond our own conditions. We can only do this through The Lord Who is perfect in love. We can only do this through trusting in The Lord Who is perfect in love.
Take care and God Bless.
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