The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today assert the power of Love to unite all people in relationship as neighbours.
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| Neighbours gather |
The Book of Ruth tells of the love that overcomes long standing tribal hatred.
* [1:1–2] Back in the time of the judges: the story looks back three generations before King David (4:17) into the time of the tribal confederation described in the Book of Judges. David’s Moabite connections are implied in 1 Sm 22:3–4. Bethlehem of Judah: Bethlehem, a town in which part of the Judean clan-division called Ephrathah lived; cf. 1 Chr 2:50–51; 4:4; Mi 5:1. Jos 19:15 mentions a different Bethlehem in the north. The plateau of Moab: on the east side of the Jordan valley rift, where the hills facing west get more rain, and where agricultural conditions differ from those in Judah. Ephrathites: a reminder of David’s origins; cf. Mi 5:1.1
Psalm 146 proclaims there is no other source of strength except the merciful God.
* [Psalm 146] A hymn of someone who has learned there is no other source of strength except the merciful God. Only God, not mortal human beings (Ps 146:3–4), can help vulnerable and oppressed people (Ps 146:5–9). The first of the five hymns that conclude the Psalter.2
In the Gospel from Matthew, Jesus, underlines Love in his presentation of the Greatest Commandment.
* [22:37–38] Cf. Dt 6:5. Matthew omits the first part of Mark’s fuller quotation (Mk 12:29; Dt 6:4–5), probably because he considered its monotheistic emphasis needless for his church. The love of God must engage the total person (heart, soul, mind).
* [22:39] Jesus goes beyond the extent of the question put to him and joins to the greatest and the first commandment a second, that of love of neighbor, Lv 19:18; see note on Mt 19:18–19. This combination of the two commandments may already have been made in Judaism.3
Tamora Whitney shares her experience that family is not just who shares your blood, it’s also who shares your space and your experience and your love.
When I married Gordi I got his family too, and my life is richer because of that. And I’m glad that even though I lost him, I still have in my life people who knew him and loved him and we share that. Naomi and Ruth are family by marriage and have a shared connection of love. But we need an even broader definition of family. Loving our neighbor as ourselves makes the whole world our family and we should treat all our brothers and sisters with love.4
Don Schwager quotes “Loving God with heart, mind, and soul,” by Origen of Alexandria (185-254 AD).
"Worthy is he, confirmed in all his gifts, who exults in the wisdom of God, having a heart full of the love of God, and a soul completely enlightened by the lamp of knowledge and a mind filled with the word of God. It follows then that all such gifts truly come from God. He would understand that all the law and the prophets are in some way a part of the wisdom and knowledge of God. He would understand that all the law and the prophets depend upon and adhere to the principle of the love of the Lord God and of neighbor and that the perfection of piety consists in love." (excerpt from COMMENTARY ON MATTHEW 13)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Matthew 22:34-40 asserts that we love God by proclaiming that he—not forms of escape like alcohol, drugs, or pornography—is strong enough to deliver and restore us. We love him as we trust that God is just as willing to bring us out of patterns of sin or indifference as he was to bring the chosen people out of Egypt.
Let the knowledge of this love fill your heart. Let it move you to tell him about your love in return. Set aside the phone, computer, laundry, or bills to pray and give thanks for all the ways God has shown his love to you. As you praise him for his kindness and goodness, you are opening yourself to receive even more of his love.
And how do we love our neighbors? As God’s love fills us, it will also flow out of us. It will expand our hearts and increase our capacity to love more humbly and more fully.
More than just performing acts of service, you love your neighbors by honoring and respecting them. You love by restraining angry words or lustful and insulting thoughts. You look at people the way God sees them, with the same love that he showers on you.6
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, insists that to create peaceful change, we must begin by remembering who we are in God. The following came out of a recent meeting of the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative: Nonviolence is the universal ethic at the heart of creation.
Jesus lived and proclaimed this universal ethic of nonviolence: a paradigm of the fullness of life putting love into action, returning good for evil, rejecting violence and killing, and nurturing a just, peaceful, sustainable, and reconciled world. It springs from his foundational understanding of God and of the nonviolent life that God calls us to live: to make peace with one another; to resist the violence and injustice that threaten or destroy this peace; and to foster a world where the fullness of peace is the birthright of all. Jesus showed us how to live this way of faithful nonviolence, even in the midst of violence and oppression, by calling us to love our enemies, to not kill, to put down the sword, and to respond actively to the cry of the poor.7
The vertical and horizontal aspects of our Love are the foundation of our strength, generosity, and nonviolence.
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