Meditation Minute

My Dearest Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

 

“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”

 

Gospel Reading Matthew 22:34-40

 

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a scholar of the law, tested him by asking, “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.”

 

In today’s Gospel reading, Christ lets us know the most important commandment, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.”  But he also tells us the second most important commandment – “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  Christ says that the second is like the first.  If that’s the case, is it just as important as the first?  When you think about the second, how can you obey the first without obeying the second.  How can you love God and not your neighbor.  If we have hatred or dissent for our neighbor, then we express the same feeling toward God. 

 

The second commandment calls us to not only love our neighbor, but to love our neighbor as our self.  We are to be ourselves to our friends, to our family, and to those who we do not even know.  But most importantly, we must learn to love those that we would rather hate.  We must love absolutely everyone.  The second commandment does not tell us to love our neighbor except those we do not like.  So what does it mean to love your neighbor.  It is simple.  You must be willing to put your neighbor’s needs before your own needs.  You must be willing to help them when they are in need.  You must be able to feed them when they are hungry, clothe them when they are naked, hold them when they are sad and comfort them when they are sick.  If we ignore our neighbor’s needs then we are ignoring the basic needs of good.   The commandment calls for us to be charitable to all.  As we would give to ourselves, we must give to our neighbor.  A feed ourselves, we must feed our neighbors who have nothing to eat.  As we clothe ourselves, we must clothe our neighbors who can’t afford to buy clothes, as we shelter ourselves, we must shelter those who have no protection.   

 

A Simple Prayer

 

Lord in Heaven, help me overcome the hatred in my life.

Give me the strength to open my arms to all my neighbors

That I might bring the love of God into their lives.

 

Yours in Christ

Michael Marcon