Third Friday of Lent

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… You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Love is the key to the commandments God has given us all. Our Lord asks us to open our hearts, souls, minds, and strengths for him and all His children. This request reveals the need for love to be a choice of our entire being. We cannot love others halfway. We either do or do not love them. We are also reminded in these commandments of the need to love ourselves as well. We need to love ourselves in light of God’s love for us in order to be able to live lives of Christian charity in regard to others. Just as there are three persons in Our One God, so too there are three persons we need to love in our lives: God, others, and ourselves.

How do we express our love for our God? Our neighbors? Ourselves?

O Lord, we love you, help us to love others and ourselves in light of that love.

Amen.