St. Paul contextualizes this commandment as a response to what Jesus has done for us in dying for us poor sinners. We have a debt, we owe a debt to God, to love others as we’ve been loved. So not only should we follow the Great Command to love our neighbor because the command came from the lips of Jesus Himself, St. Paul is saying, we must follow it for another reason, we owe it to God. Because we have been loved so extraordinarily loved by God, our lives are to be permeated with love for one another.
So this certainly causes us to reflect, to ask ourselves, “what is the motivating factor in our life?” Self-preservation? Accumulation of comfort? The seeking of novel pleasures? Or Love? If the answer is not love, something needs to change in us.
For Paul, love for others is a response to being loved by God. Many Christians don’t realize how loved they are. They never stop to look at a crucifix. They never consider the sad state of their souls. They live the unexamined life. Many do not consider what they owe to God. Many of us fall into a routine, in which we just go from one event to another, without considering how I am called to allow God’s love to permeate me and motivate me in this moment.
Paul became such a powerful preacher of the Gospel because of his conviction that he was a sinner who was lost, who has been saved by God’s love, who was now in the debt of God. Yet this experience of indebtedness to God became the starting point for a mission of love that changed the world.
May we take this message to heart, that we may be faithful to the great command to love God and neighbor wholeheartedly, to renounce all that keeps us from this love, as our Lord teaches in the Gospel, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
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That the love of God and neighbor may permeate the life of every Christian.
For the strength to be faithful to all of the Lord’s commands and the grace and humility to repent of our failings.
That during this National Vocations Awareness Week our young people may respond generously to the call of the Lord to serve the Church.
That we may be attentive to the needs of the sick, the poor, and the despairing in our midst.
We pray in a special way during this month of November for all the faithful departed, for those whose names are written in our parish book of the names of the dead, all deceased members of St. Ignatius of Antioch Parish, and our deceased family members and friends, deceased clergy and religious, for the repose of the soul of Bishop Richard Lennon who will be buried today, for those who fought and died for our freedom and for X. for whom this mass is offered.
O God, you know that our life in this present age is subject to suffering and need, hear the prayers of those who cry to you and receive the prayers of those who believe in you. Through Christ our Lord.
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