Love For God = Love For Neighbor

Last Sunday’s Gospel Mark 12:28-34, is a challenge for us to examine what it means to love the other and also what it means to love our God. In 2018, we have many opportunities to love with all our mind, heart and strength. The challenge is to prayerfully reflect,  find and take advantage of the opportunities to love the poor, the victimized, the lonely, the sick, the orphaned, the immigrant and the marginalized. How can we practically love God and not know our neighbor: their suffering, their pain, their fear? The gospel challenges us to do what’s right, help others even when it’s inconvenient or difficult for us, and to be a blessing in another’s life!

Teach Love for All People

• To love another is to get to know them through the outstretched arms of Jesus.
• To get to know another means it will take much energy, much strength, much of our heart to deepen and solidify that relationship.
• To help another means vulnerability has to be offered to those we meet. It is in relationship building that we understand what it means to love: in the gifts and the challenges; through the hard stuff of life. In the circumstance of pain, we are called to love others in their own suffering; we are called to love in the moments of joy.

Bring Friends and Those We Meet From Different Backgrounds Together

• What if your dinner table at Thanksgiving could include people from many faith groups or religious groups?
• What if we could serve love and offer hope to another person in need of hope?

 Volunteer: Serve the Poor

• Each year we embark on a mission trip to a mission organization called Mustard Seed. In our encounter with the poor, we become wrapped up in their joys and pain.
• Loving God and neighbor is a challenge to volunteer, to serve the poor and to receive the blessings of the poor as well.

Visit Places of Desperation

• Visit prisons, detention centers, hospitals, impoverished urban cities, or rural areas.
• Join mission trips to Third and Fourth World Countries

Theological Reflection

What does it mean to love God?

What does it mean to love our neighbor as ourselves?

How do we love our neighbors near and far: ones who are like us and ones who are not like us?

 Ponder

Love for God and love for neighbor is our Catholic response to all who we will encounter today.