Christ the Cornerstone

Love of God and neighbor is the key to all human happiness

“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” (Mt 22:37-39).

In the Gospel reading for the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Mt 22:34-40), Jesus tells us that love of God and neighbor is the key to all human happiness. If we don’t love God wholeheartedly, and if we don’t love others with the same regard we have for ourselves, we cannot thrive as human beings or achieve the peace and joy promised us as children of God.

Love is the way to fullness of life, Jesus tells us. But what does love mean for followers of Jesus Christ? “Love” is too often used to denote emotions or physical urges that are nothing more than good feelings or self-gratification. And many times, when we say we love something, all we really mean is that we are attracted to it, that it pleases us in some way.

Loving God and neighbor is different. True love involves sacrifice and commitment, and it demands that we forget about ourselves and pay our attention fully and unreservedly to God, first of all, and then to others.

Love requires that we unselfishly devote ourselves to the good of others as an expression of our complete devotion to God. Love demands that we “let go” of whatever gets in the way of serving God in and through our brothers and sisters.

Love is not easy. It requires sacrifice and self-emptying. It challenges us to get our priorities straight and to reject any empty promises that would lead us to believe that there is something more important than loving God and our neighbor as ourselves.

In the first reading from the Book of Exodus, the commandment to love our neighbor is expressed in concrete terms:

You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt. You shall not wrong any widow or orphan. If ever you wrong them and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry. … If you lend money to one of your poor neighbors among my people, you shall not act like an extortioner toward him by demanding interest from him. If you take your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge, you shall return it to him before sunset; for this cloak of his is the only covering he has for his body. What else has he to sleep in? If he cries out to me, I will hear him; for I am compassionate (Ex 22:20-22, 24-26).

The love that God demands of us is not a warm, fuzzy feeling. It is a demonstration of respect, compassion, generosity and humble service toward our sisters and brothers in need.

Jesus frequently speaks about love in the Gospels. For example, “Whoever loves me will keep my word,” says the Lord, “and my Father will love him and we will come to him” (Jn 14:23). Love is who God is, so that when we love God and our neighbor, we are participating in God’s inner life, the Holy Trinity.

Love is the source of all life. The Book of Genesis tells us that God created the world (all things visible and invisible) out of pure love. And when our first parents disobeyed God’s command, and failed in their duty to love him wholeheartedly, they were choosing themselves over God. They chose “self” over God and neighbor, and as a result they were expelled from their homeland and forced to live the harsh life of exiles in a foreign land.

St. John the Evangelist tells us that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (Jn 3:16). It was God’s generous love that first created us, and this same selfless love—incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ—was the only thing that could rescue us from our loveless human condition.

Followers of Jesus believe that we are created, redeemed and sanctified by divine love (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). And we are empowered by God’s grace to overcome our natural inclination (original sin) to place our own selfish needs and desires ahead of anything else.

The two commandments—to love God unreservedly and our neighbor as ourselves—do not restrict our freedom or prevent us from living joyfully. The opposite is true. When we truly empty ourselves of selfishness, and truly love others as Jesus commands, we become free men and women whose lives are full of joy! †