No commandment greater than these
Today’s Gospel reminds us of the most important commandments: To love God with all our heart and to love our neighbor as ourselves. These can be, to put it bluntly, really tough asks, even in the best of times.
When all is good, we might remember to thank God for our health, our family and friends, our opportunities — if we’re not too busy with all of the above to get around to doing that. When things are not going well, we almost certainly think to pray for better days or an easing of our burdens. Then we probably get busy again, in a cycle of forgetting and remembering about God. Something tells me God looks forward to hearing from us, either way, whether in our need or our gratitude.
The trick about loving our neighbor as ourselves is two-fold. Other people can get on our nerves! We have to try to love them anyway and see them as God does. The other catch is that we’re not always that kind to ourselves. In fact, we’re often harder on our own flaws and faults than we are on those of others. I wonder how many of our dedicated colleagues around the Catholic Charities network would not think twice about extending grace to a struggling client but then turn around and beat themselves up for not being good enough or present enough or accomplished enough or just enough enough? We must give ourselves a little of that grace, too.
Jesus says, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” Remembering to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves will help us get there.
Julie Bourbon is senior writer at CCUSA. She loves to bake for her department and keep them up-to-date on current events, whether they like it or not.