Love and Do What You Will
(2 Tim 2:8-16; Ps 24; Mk 12:28-34)
**********************************
How well are you able to love yourself? Are you struggling with low self-worth? Do you realize you might be daily breaking one of the commandments of Jesus?
The way out is to listen to today’s psalm and learn the way of the Lord – which is to keep the Great Commandment to love.
To do so is to be able to follow the teaching of St. Augustine – love and do what we will. That is possible because if we truly love, we will want to do only what is God’s will.
The teaching of Jesus in today’s gospel is very clear. It is God’s will that we love God with our whole being, and all others as we love ourselves.
The first part of this commandment was very familiar to the Jewish people. To love God with our whole being is the Great Shema of Judaism (Deuteronomy 6:4-9) given by Moses to the people convened before him, by which God charged them to: “… bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
Some take this literally. In the Toronto airport enroute to Palestine, I saw an orthodox Jew wrap a leather thong around his arm as he recited his prayers. At the Western Wall in Jerusalem, I witnessed an orthodox Jew wrapping a leather thong around the arm of a tourist, lift up his baseball cap, and place a square amulet on his forehead!
Studying the scriptures at the Western Wall on the Sabbath
What was not so familiar to the Jewish people of Jesus’ time was the second part of that commandment, taken from an obscure law hidden among the plethora of other laws in Leviticus (Leviticus 19:18) which reads, “but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” Jesus took this easily ignored law from the Old Testament and placed it side by side with the Great Shema of Judaism, basically equating the two.
This meant that for Jesus, to love our neighbor as we love ourselves is just as important as Great Shema – loving God with our whole being. That was shocking, and totally new. No one had ever done that before. Yet that very teaching becomes the heart of the new commandment Jesus gave his followers, a teaching St. Paul took to heart as we read in the first reading: “suffering hardship, to the point of being chained like a criminal.” Daring as Paul was, he even went a step further in Galatians 5:14, declaring the last part of this commandment fulfills the first: “For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Sabbath gathering at the Western Wall
To love our neighbor is fairly clear – treat others fairly, forgive them their failings, try to understand them, affirm and encourage them, do good to them, trust them and share life with them. What is very disturbing, however, is how some people can think they are doing this through devotions yet treat someone they don’t like very harshly. The saying, “Would that we could see ourselves as others see us,” applies here.
What is more challenging, however, is to love ourselves. That is perhaps where we fail the most. Many of us have a hard time accepting ourselves as we are, beat ourselves up for our past mistakes, refuse to forgive ourselves, reject compliments from others, and find it easier to love others than to love ourselves. At one low point in my life, a friend told me, “Your refusal to forgive yourself is worse than anything you have ever done!” That shocked me out of my self-deprecating mood and actually changed my life at that time.
Rarely has anyone come to me over all my years of ministry to admit that their greatest sin was, “I don’t love myself.” During one mission, a diminutive looking woman came to talk. She had been sexually abused as a child, was in an abusive marriage, and shared with me she was a “non-person, a nobody.” The only thing that was keeping her going was she had a key to the church and came in each day to pray before the Blessed Sacrament. I felt for her and tried to encourage her – at least she was naming her reality, sharing it with another person, and just maybe in that small way, starting to love herself. I gave her Isaiah 43:1-4 to pray with, a passage given to me by my spiritual director that started my healing journey as a young Oblate seminarian.
The Eucharist is a powerful experience of God’s love through forgiveness and healing, and a wonderful way to love God back. It is also an opportunity to love ourselves as we admit our need for forgiveness and help, and at the dismissal we are commissioned to go and love others as Jesus has loved us.
May our celebration empower us to believe in God’s love for us, love God back with our whole being, love others as best we can, and above all, remember to love ourselves. Then, we will be truly able to live that teaching of St. Augustine – love and do what we will.
We should have forgiveness and love when we treat other people and this is what God wants us to do in return. We should always treat God and the Messiah with respect and love when we pray and proclaim the gospel. One of the commandments is loving our neighbour like ourselves and we should treat people with respect no matter if they have done anything wrong and committed any sins in the past. But, we should be able to forgive ourselves and love ourselves and to let go of the past. If we can forget all of our sins in past then we can be healed by God and he will forgive us and love us . It will be easier for us to help other people around us and help our selves in return. By praying all those prayers all the time is not going to help if you cannot let go of the past and be forgiven for all your sins and repent. Having love and do what your will can live out these teachings. Many Blessings! Amen.
I know who I am and what kind of person I have become after dealing with this illness and pain and suffering for over 10 years . I am able to forgive myself and other people who have hurt me . For those people who intent to hurt us all the time, I guess this is part of doing what your will and believe in God with love and live out his word. Blessings! Blessings!
Thanks Bishop Lavoie , I always have these teachings and lessons in my mind , thanks for your experience. At one point is basically like me , but I was able to forgive myself and love myself to move on to recovery. The same goes to you, all the best. Keep on going…
The Sacred Heart of Jesus will always love us and we should show that we love Jesus from our hearts no matter what kind of pain and suffering we are overcoming. As long there is love and forgiveness in ourselves then we will receive the sacred heart from Jesus . We continue to believe and follow Jesus in his footsteps and to live out his teachings. Saturday is the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary , her feast day. We pray to the blessed Virgin Mary for our sins and sickness that we have to face everyday. Amen . Keep it up with your homilies and books Bishop Lavoie.