Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

"Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" He said to him, "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 the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments."

Love stands at the center of all the commandments from the Old to the New Testament. This single virtue gives life to our faith and expression to our hope. It also reminds us of how interdependent we all are on God and each other. Love finds its fulfillment in others. Sure we can and should love ourselves (after all God loves us!), but we can’t experience the fullness of what it means to love without feeling affection for someone else. Our love of God comes from our hearts, souls, and minds and because God is infinite we must love Him with everything we are. Our love of neighbors, on the other hand, mirrors our love of self and comes second to our love of God and flows out from this love. The greatest thing about this virtue is the more we give love to God and others, the more we receive for ourselves.

Do we love God with all our hearts, souls, and minds? Do we love others as we love ourselves? How can we grow in love and live out these commandments more perfectly?

O Lord, help us to love you and others with everything we are and ever will be.

Amen.