29/10/2023

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

“Love your neighbour as yourself” implies you must love yourself first. Clearly, an absence of self-love is bad for your neighbour.

I love myself because, thanks to Jesus Christ and my friends - which include my family - I know I am loveable.

Bear in mind, to love is not the same as to like.Within me, there is a number of things I do not like. C’est la vie. Have to do the best with what I have got.

As England encapsulates and transcends its 55 cities – and Wales does the same with its seven - so the Two Great Commandments - Deut 6,5 and Lev 19,18, - do the same with what we call The Old or Original Testament with its 613 commandments: 365 negative commands, corresponding to the number of solar days (in a year), and 248 positive commands, corresponding to the number of members in a man's body (joints, or bones, excluding teeth).

Thanks to Mt 25,40 - “What you do to the least of mine, you do unto me” - these two Great Commandments become superimposed. Our Love of God is realised – becoming genuine - in the way we treat our neighbours.

For me, underpinning love, are two virtues. There is appreciation, because what we love is life enhancing AND respect through which we allow the beloved to be themselves.

Good to stir up love by pondering the beloved: the design genius of God the Father, the immense generosity of The Son and the beauty of the Holy Spirit guiding me – as well as the life enhancing friends and allies-in-life with which I am blessed.