The Heart of the Gospel

   “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and the first commandment.  The second is like it:  You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matt 22: 37 – 39)

   The more I study Holy Scripture, the more I grow in faith, the more I grow in love of God the more I understand that love is the basis of all Jesus said and taught.  Whether it be for God, our neighbor, ourselves, or our enemy we are to love.  Without love there is no Christianity.

   Love is one of the most misused word in the English language; we say we love virtually everything.  We love sports, we love our car, we love lasagna.  We tend to think of love as a higher level of “like”, but it isn’t.  We are to love even those we don’t like.  I find nothing in the scripture that says I must like my neighbor, but I must love them.  We don’t have to like our enemy, but we must love and pray for them.

   It’s not always easy to love.  In fact I find it very hard to love some people and pray to overcome that resistance.  Like most others, I also get like and love mixed up at times.  To love is a commandment of God.  To like is a decision we must make.  There are some that I know I will never really like but that doesn’t remove my obligation to love them.

   St. Paul said, “So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Cor 13:13).  The gospel is one of love.  Jesus didn’t preach a gospel of punishment or condemnation but one of love and forgiveness.  May that love fill us with the spirit and heart of the gospel.

Father You are love itself.

You love your children eternally.

Help me love You with all my heart.

Help me love my neighbor as myself.

Amen