Mark 12:28-34 Love God and Neighbor

Ubi caritas Deus ibi est.  God is here where there is love.  Do you believe?

The love of Christ joins us together.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church (2012) reminds us that “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him…for those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren.  And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he justified he also glorified.”

What good do we try to do united with God in love?  How is he calling us to be fashioned in the image of his son, today, in our own lives?  Yes, we should follow the commandments.  Jesus challenges us to go beyond them and let love completely rule us when he gives us his new commands: 

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. 

And

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

In the first reading today St. Paul is giving St. Timothy, his spiritual son and dear friend advice on leading his community.  Yesterday we were reminded by St. Paul that strength of God “comes in the form of power, love and self-control.”  Each of us knows the power of love.  We each know what we would do or are capable of for those we love.    How many of us have sacrificed time, sleep, or greater personal sacrifices for those we love? 

Paul shares with Timothy his sacrifices and sufferings.  In them is a great love for God and for others.  Because we are united in Christ we know that the Word must be shared for love of each other, to help each other to receive eternal salvation in the life of the world to come.  God is love.  Where to or more gather in his name, there is love.  In giving of ourselves, we give love to others, and in giving we receive.  In these two commands given to us by Jesus is the Way to Eternal Life.  In visiting with those in jail or homebound or talking with the homeless, love is the root of what they want:  that tender word; a holding of their hand; that look into their eye; that appreciation of who they are, not what they’ve done; that restored dignity. It is not difficult to share the Gospel of Christ.  St. Paul reminds us that this “word of God is not contained.”  How could love ever be contained?

(CCC 2011)  “The charity (or love) of Christ is the source of all our merits before God.  Grace by uniting us to Christ in active love, ensures the supernatural quality of our acts and consequently their merit before God and before men.  The saints have always had a lively awareness that their merits were pure grace.” Let us pray in the words of St. Terese of Lisieux,

“Father… I want to work for your love alone…In the evening of this life I shall appear before you with empty hands, for I do not ask you Lord, to count my works.  All our justice is blemished in your eyes.  I wish then, to be clothed in your own justice and to receive from your love the eternal possession of yourself.  Amen.”