You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.
We find this quote in both the first reading and Gospel this Sunday. Jesus quotes the first commandment directly as we hear it in the first reading but adds the second as well: to love our neighbor as ourselves.
So…that’s Love God and love your neighbor.
Even though I have heard the commandments many times, each time I hear them, I think of new ways that they can apply to me with where I am in my life.
These two commandments that God gives us are signs of his unconditional love for us. The same type of love he wants us to have for others. I know that God’s love for me is unconditional and perfect; no matter what I do or no matter how many times I screw up, he still loves me. I know that I can never match that love… it’s just not possible. So rather than trying to figure out how I can emulate His perfect love, I think it’s more impactful to think about what I can do to be more intentional in how I love others, to become a better version of myself each day.
If I can just take the pure love that God has for me and refract that out to all of the people that I meet, then I know that I am becoming to be a better example of His love. A great way to think about this is with the concept of light: God’s love is pure white light that is shining down on me and through me. I am the prism that refracts the light into many colors. I want these colors to shine out from me in my daily encounters. This is how I can both show my love for God and also for others.
How can you be a prism of God’s love today… to be kinder, to be more forgiving, to love more deeply, and more unconditionally than you were yesterday?
