The lawyer answered, ‘Yott shall love the Lord your God with allyour hearty and with allyour soul and with allyour strength) and with allyour mind; and your neighbour asyourself”
(Lk 10:27)
Help me Lord to love you, my neighbour and myself with all that I am
Additional scripture passages
Deuteronomy 10:12-13
Psalm 133
Reflection
The lawyer’s answer may seem simple, drawn from the well-known commandments of God. However, to love God in this way and our neighbour as ourselves can often be difficult.
God’s commandment to love him requires deep commitment and means abandoning ourselves entirely, offering our hearts and minds to serve God’s will. We can ask for the grace to follow Christ’s example, he who offered himself up completely and said, “Not my will but yours be done” (Lk 22:42). He also manifested his great love to all, including his enemies. We do not get to choose our neighbours. Loving them means being attentive to their needs, accepting their imperfections and encouraging their hopes and aspirations. The same attitude is needed on the path of Christian unity, with regard to one another’s different traditions.
The call to love your neighbour “as yourself’ reminds us of the need to accept ourselves as we are, conscious of God’s compassionate gaze upon us, always ready to forgive. Consider that we are God’s beloved creation. Respect yourself. Seek peace with yourself. Similarly, we can each ask for the grace to love and accept our own church or community, with its failings, entrusting all things to the Father, who restores us through the Holy Spirit.
Prayer
Lord, give us the grace to know you more deeply, in order to love you with all of our being.
Grant us a pure heart, to love our neighbour as ourselves.
May the gift of your Holy Spirit
enable us to see your presence in our sisters and brothers,
that we may love each other with the same unconditional love with which you love us. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
