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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