THE WORLD’S GREATEST CHALLENGE

31st Sunday

It is very tricky to mention love these days.  People pose as experts of love.  and why not, when kids have “puppy love”, adolescents have “first love”, adults have “true love” and the elderly claim “endless love.”

But love can turn to tragedy.  What starts out as love can end up as a mere affair. I noticed that so many of our entertainment materials these days are fascinations about affairs:  A Beautiful Affair, A Secret Affair, My Neighbor’s Wife.  We may be experts in talking about love but we are also experts in escaping from the real demands of love.

The Gospel speaks of love as the greatest commandment.  The Lord Jesus is absolutely right in combining into one the two facets of love – love of God and love of neighbor.  This is in fact, the greatest commandment of all time and to us certainly, the greatest challenge of all.

In combining the two loves into one, the Lord however is giving us their distinction also.  There are different levels in the ladder of priority.  God is first, neighbor is second, and self is last.  That is why the Lord says:  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, with all your mind and with all your strength.  Then the Lord mentioned our neighbor, and lastly one’s self.  While love issues forth from one’s self, the center of the heart must be God and the treatment of neighbor is the proof this God-centered love.

Is that the same as our priorities in the field of love today?  The world teaches us that the wisest approach is first to focus on one’s self, then a remnant goes to the neighbor, and last, if you still have time and energy to spare, to God. 

Thus, many love God in principle, in their minds, but they confine this love within the walls of the church, to Sundays, to special occasions.  God no longer has claim over the whole of our lives.  In loving our neighbor, do we not also look for what we can get out of them; loving only those who can love us in return?  Look at all the deceit in relationships, all the poison in words, and all the pain inflicted by our actions or omissions.

As we reflect on love, we must admit that we fail to love as true followers of Jesus.  But we do not stop there.  We are still challenged to love, this time, empowered by His own love for us.  The reason why many of us do not know how to love is because we have not felt loved, in a total and unconditional way.

As Jesus invites us to love God and neighbor, He is also asking us to experience His love for each one of us.  He not only teaches us about the greatest commandment, the greatest challenge which is love.  He in fact, shares this love to us in the Eucharist so that touched by it, we may know how to truly love God and neighbor.

Let us learn from the school of love that Jesus offers us everyday through His Word and through the Eucharist.

WE ARE ONE WITH THE VICTIMS OF THE HURRICANE SANDY IN THE USA.  WE PRAY FOR ALL AFFECTED SPECIALLY FOR THE FIL-AM FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES.