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 first commandment.
The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
My dear brothers and sisters what does it mean to love our neighbor as ourself? The readings for today’s Sunday tells us how to love everyone who comes into our life, not only friends and family, but also our enemies.
Love is very important not only in our relationship between people on earth, but in future, because love is reaching heaven. Jesus Christ many times tells us in the Scripture that the Kingdom of heaven is about loving God and our neighbor.
The first reading from the Book of Exodus tells us about how we should treat strangers and foreigners.
“You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. You shall not abuse any widow or orphan. If you do abuse them, when they cry out to me, I will surely heed their cry.â€
We have to be compassionate, loving, forgiving and help all those in need like God is compassionate, loving and forgiving.
During today’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus was asked by the Pharisees what was the greatest Commandment.
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” The second greatest Commandment is, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
The second Commandment means that if we truly love God with all our heart, soul and mind, this love should shine towards others, our neighbors. Our neighbors include everyone, our families, our friends and even strangers. The love we have for our family should be equal to the love we have for everyone else because we are all one large Christian family through Jesus in the Body of Christ, the Holy Catholic Church.
My dear brothers and sisters we have to remember that, if we discriminate towards one person within the Body of Christ, then we do not have the love of God in us. If we break the second commandment by not loving our neighbors as we love ourselves, then we do not love God. We may say that we love God, but in reality, we do not love God.
Jesus said, what you do to others, you do to Him. If you give someone a drink of water, you are giving a drink of water to Jesus. If you dress the naked, you are giving clothing to Jesus. If you feed the hungry, you are feeding Jesus.
My brothers and sisters, I ask that you reflect on these words this week and pray to the Holy Spirit that He may come to you to sanctify you in Christ by the grace of the Heavenly Father. May the grace of God work abundantly in each and everyone of you so that the commandment of love will be lived.