The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. The scribe said to him, “Well said, teacher. You are right in saying, He is One and there is no other than he. And to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
And when Jesus saw
that he answered with understanding, he said to him, “You are not far from the
Kingdom of God. And no one dared to ask him any more questions.
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Reflection:
The story is told about a pastor who was preaching about love for God and neighbor. Across his church was a man who would always create noise whenever he was preaching. And he would naturally be distracted by that man. One morning the pastor went to that man and angrily told him that he is disturbing him. The man said to the pastor: “Why are you angry with me, don’t you know that I am just testing you if you live what you are preaching?”
Do you love God? Surely you do. How about your neighbor? It’s easy to say I love God but to live this love of God is a different story altogether. Because if we would live this love of God. Then, we would be willing to love even our unlovable neighbor.
But who is this neighbor? He/she could be anyone that you know who’ve hurt you. He/she could be your spouse, your relative, your friend or your literal house neighbor. The supreme test of our love for God is when we are willing to love even our unlovable neighbor.
If we say we love God yet we hold deep resentment toward somebody who has hurt us badly. Then, our love of God is simply superficial. It becomes authentic when we hold no bitterness toward those who’ve hurt us no matter how deep the hurt they’ve inflicted upon us.
What is the use of going to church, of giving offerings and doing other forms of sacrifices as an expression of our faith and love for God. Yet, we hold a grudge against someone? Thus, we are still wanting in our profession of our love for God. True love for God is when we are capable of forgetting and forgiving the hurt that had been inflicted upon us.
What if the hurt is consistently being made afresh, there is no sign of remorse from that neighbor. Perhaps it’s about time to completely walk away from that neighbor. We walk away not because we don’t love that neighbor and God. We walk away because that is the most ethical act to do.
In the gospel, Jesus talks about the two greatest commandments: Love for God and neighbor. These two expressions of love should always be together and it should not be separated. Does this mean that there’s always a happy ending when we love God and neighbor?
Not always, there are
also sad endings when we express and live our love for God and neighbor.
However, these sad endings are temporary eventually there would be a happy
ending. Why? Because we never give up on loving our God and our neighbor. –
Marino J. Dasmarinas
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