Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Homily for 4 Nov 2015

4 Nov 2015
Memorial of St Charles Borromeo

Of the Two Great Commandments, it’s easy to focus on the second one: Love your neighbor as yourself.  And we can have a million different laws on social justice and morality to figure out what it means to love our neighbor.  Of course, it’s important to consider how best to love one another.  And St Paul encourages us to do so.

But as a people, as a culture, we can become so entrenched in trying to love our neighbor and live as a peaceful society that we can overlook the First Great Commandment: to love God.  And that’s what Jesus challenges us to do when he talks about “hating” our mother and father, wife and children, brothers and sisters.

He’s asking us to put him ahead of everyone else.  He’s not asking us to literally “hate” our family and neighbors; he’s asking us to love God first.  He’s reminding us that there are two Great Commandments, and that the first and greatest is to love God.

But here God isn’t being selfish.  He’s not saying: “Love me and forget your neighbor.”  No, instead he’s saying: “Love me first, so that you can love your neighbor.”  To be a disciple of Christ in the world is to love our neighbor.  But in order to really love one another, we must first commit ourselves to the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God—to the One who teaches us how to love perfectly.

It’s so easy to focus on loving our neighbor, and to forget that love of God comes first.  But Jesus reminds us very bluntly: our ability to love others is built upon our ability to love God.  And so, as we approach the altar of God, may we come to simply love and worship our God.  Here is where we become disciples.  And from here we go to love our neighbor.    

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