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“Heralds and Witnesses of the Law of Love”
World Mission Sunday
On this fourth Sunday of October, we are reminded about the two main moral obligations in life, namely to love God and our neighbor. Jesus is not only the wise teacher who restates the teaching of the Scriptures on this point, but also the one who put these two commandments into practice in the most perfect manner. Love of God and neighbor is really the “essence of Christianity.” It is the golden rule of life which guides all believers in building up the Kingdom both in themselves and around them.
In today’s Gospel episode Jesus takes the opportunity of an ill-intended question to teach all men the need to join together love of God and love of neighbor. This is the essence of the moral teaching of divine revelation as contained in Sacred Scripture.
As we celebrate World Mission Sunday, our thoughts go to all missionaries with admiration, solidarity, and concern. They share the treasure of divine revelation with peoples of other faiths, inviting them to be conscious and active members of the Kingdom of God established by Jesus Christ.
In this Eucharistic celebration, as we pray for all missionaries, we also ask God for the grace to keep the two laws of love together, and live them out, day by day as Jesus did.
A proclamation from the holy Gospel according to St. Matthew (Mt 22:34-40). Glory to you O Lord.
When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a scholar of the law, tested him by asking, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “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. The whole Law and the Prophets depend on these two commandments.”
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ.
Catechism of the Catholic Church (ccc)
#2083. Jesus summed up man’s duties toward God in this saying: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This immediately echoes the solemn call: “Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God is one LORD.”
God has loved us first. The love of the One God is recalled in the first of the “ten words.” The commandments then make explicit the response of love that man is called to give to his God.
#2196. In response to the question about the first of the commandments, Jesus says: “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
The apostle St. Paul reminds us of this: “He who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,‘ and any other commandment, are summed up in this sentence, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”
True Life In God Messages
I Will Never Weary Knocking
Love Your Neighbour As Yourself
December 28, 1988
(This is a message for the group.)
I am the Lord;
My flowers, be in Peace, for I, your Lord, am Peace; My beloved creation, how I love you! you are precious to Me; you whom I named flowers, grow, grow in My Divine Light; pray for your brothers who yet, have not seen My Light; pray for their conversion;
flowers! I intend to irrigate you; yes! My rivulet will grow into a river and My river will grow into an ocean of Peace and Love; I have said that I shall send My Light far and wide and that “I shall pour out teaching like prophecy as a legacy to all future generations;”[1] I am your Consoler and He who loves you most;
flowers, I know you are living in a period of obscurity, whereupon this obscurity only brings sufferings, calamities and aridity; it had been said that in these times, many would lose the sense of the Divine and would live in their own way, and would be unable to tell good from evil;
flowers, when a soul fills herself with materialism and clings to what the world has to offer her, then, she has allowed herself to be filled with Obscurity, thus leaving no space for Holiness, no space for My Spirit to grow in her, no space for The Truth, and no space for My Light; she lives in obscurity;
this is why most of this young generation lacks spirituality and refuses to hear My Word and acknowledge Me as God; they are after degrading passions, since they have given up the Divine Truth and are after material objects; I know, My flowers, how many of you suffer to see one of your own walking in this obscurity and being in constant deep sleep! but I tell you that I, the Lord, am outside their door; I will always be there, knocking, until they hear Me; I will never weary knocking, and I will never abandon them, ever! I love you all with an everlasting love, this love so misunderstood!
come to Me with all your problems, offer them to Me and rest; come and lean on Me; I am your Consoler and I will console you, giving you My Peace; come to your Gentle Saviour, and I will heal your wounds; never weary of invoking Me and praying to Me; I am always with you; I love you and bless each one of you, I bless all your family;
(Later on, our Holy Mother:)
children, approach Jesus, He calls you all from His Cross; please Jesus by loving each other as much as He loves you; for the whole Law is summarised in a single command: "Love your neighbour as yourself;"[2]
find Peace and Love in His Heart, take His Peace and Love and spread It among you; imbue the entire world with His Divine Love; fill your soul with this joy that My Son is offering you;
little ones, pray, pray, and converse with God, have a constant link with your Father in Heaven; pray with fervour, let your prayers reach Him; pray with love, let Him feel your prayers;
O children, how I love you! I am always with you, I am now here, with you, and I will be with you when you will leave this place and with you when you enter your homes; We are always Present and forever will be;
I bless you all in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit;
we, us;
(The Lord asked me to read in His meeting Galatians 5 and 6, which I will.)
Love Your Neighbour As Yourself
July 10, 1987
flower of Mine, integrate in My Body, to live in wilderness is hard, but I will always guide you to My Fountain where I will quench your thirst and give you rest and shelter; daughter, be My sacrifice, all will not be in vain; hold on to Me, you are not alone, we are together crossing this wilderness; allow Me to imprint on you My special command: “love your neighbour as yourself;”
But Lord, it's not new. You said this before.
are you following it? every ecclesiastical soul has yet to learn to obey My Command, let them draw from My Infinite Love and learn to love one another;
feel Me, all parts of My Body lacerate Vassula; I have not completed dictating you My desires and I still keep in store a bigger desire! Vassula you are beginning to feel it because I am enlightening you to sense what I desire; I love My creation boundlessly;
My God, if it is 'this' what You desire then indeed Your Kingdom on earth will be as it is in Heaven!
Prayer in Time of Purification
Tender Father, lash not Your wrath on this generation, lest they perish altogether;
Lash not on Your flock distress and anguish,
for the waters will run dry and nature will wither;
all will succumb at Your wrath leaving no trace behind them;
The heat of Your Breath will put aflame the earth turning it into a waste!
From the horizon a star will be seen;
The night will be ravaged and ashes will fall as snow in winter, covering Your people like ghosts;
Take Mercy on us, God, and do not assess us harshly;
Remember the hearts that rejoice in You and You in them!
Remember Your faithful and let not Your Hand fall on us with force,
But, rather in Your Mercy lift us and place Your precepts in every heart. Amen” (28 November 2009)
Ref.: Catechism of the Catholic Church • True Life In God - www.tlig.org, Euchalette, 23 October 2011, 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Yr A.
"Heralds and Witnesses of the Law of Love"
Love of God and neighbor was the soul of the Covenant Yahweh had made with his Chosen People. Failure to love in practice was a betrayal of the Covenant and resulted in the creation of victims in the various sectors of society (see the First Reading). All the prophets kept reminding the people about it.
The synthesis of the two loves is also the soul of the New Covenant established by Christ and sealed in his blood. It embodies all the essential requirements of the Old Law, but it is much more demanding because it is situated in the new setting of the Kingdom, and is patterned after the example of Jesus. He is the perfect example of how we should love God and men for he lived the demands of the two loves with an intensity and a totality that cost him his very life.
Love of God and neighbor is really the “essence of Christianity.” It is the golden rule of life which guides all believers in building up the Kingdom both in themselves and around them.
These two loves are prioritized but also complementary – none of the two is perfect without the other. Love of God is number one. It grounds and gives meaning to the love of neighbor. It keeps all the elements of the construction together. But love for God finds its necessary and most challenging manifestation in the love for neighbor, as Jesus showed us through his life and death.
Two loves, one heart, one attitude, then. These two related loves should never be dissociated, never opposed. St. John – no doubt echoing his Master – spelled out their relatedness and complementariness when he stated, “If anyone says, ‘My love is fixed on God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. One who has no love for the brother he sees, cannot love the God he does not see” (1 Jn 4:20). Therefore, “Whoever loves God must also love his brother” (1 Jn 4:21).
It is only by keeping these commandments together and living them out, day by day as Jesus did, that the Kingdom grows and becomes ever more an integral part of our life.
And once we become the living realization of what all human beings are called to be, the Kingdom expands even beyond us, for the good tends to grow under the power of God’s grace.
To a world perverted by materialism, hedonism and superstition, the Gospel reminds the absolute primacy of God and the duty to love Him to the utmost. To societies brutalized by selfishness, greed, aggressiveness, and injustice of all kinds, the Gospel offers the only lasting solution in the sincere love of neighbor exemplified by Christ.
Whenever these gifts are accepted and lived out, God’s plan for mankind becomes a wonderful reality. Then people begin to experience already on earth a foretaste of the contentment and fulfillment that characterizes heaven.
Ref.: Euchalette, 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time
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