“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37, 39).  

The major theme for this 30^th Sunday in Ordinary Time focuses on the greatest commandment of all in the Bible, or the Lord’s Commandment, or the New Commandment, namely, to love God above all, and to express concretely such love in action by loving our neighbor (Mark 12:30-31, John 13:34). Therefore, the 10 Commandments must be interpreted considering this twofold, yet the single commandment of love, that is the fullness or the fulfillment of the Law (CCC #2055, #2196).

Love is the hallmark, identity, and essence of Christianity because the essence of God is love (1 John 4:8). God first loves us and accepts us without condition or distinction (1 John 4:10, 19). Therefore, neither shall we place any conditions (e.g., race, creed, nationality, social status, gender, age, etc.) to love others. Moreover, it is in God’s love we find our true belonging, self-worth, and identity.

The Lord prescribed love towards God and taught justice towards neighbor, so that we would be neither unjust, nor unworthy of God. Thus, through the Decalogue, God prepared us to become his friends and to live in harmony with our neighbor--the words of the Decalogue remain likewise for us Christians. Far from being abolished, they have received amplification and development from the fact of the coming of the Lord in the flesh (CCC #2063).

God does not want us holding a relationship of Transaction but Transformation. Therefore, Dynamic Christian disciples are those who (1) BELIEVE, (2) GROW, (3) SERVE, (4) LOVE and (5) LEAD others to Jesus. Today’s topic invites us to love God above all and to love our neighbor as ourselves, to follow Jesus Christ more closely, to repent our sins, to exercise our Christian stewardship, to use our time, treasure, and talents to love God above all and to love our neighbors as ourselves, participating in the works of mercy, to accomplish God’s will in our lives to glorify God.  

How can we love God above all and our neighbor as ourselves, seeing God in all, helping, supporting, encouraging, comforting, forgiving, praying for one another?

Wishing everyone a blessed week in the Lord.