Our Love of Neighbor Expresses Our Love of God

Memorial of Saint Bernard, Abbot and Doctor of the Church

August 20, Friday

Readings (read full text here)

    Reading I: Ruth 1:1, 3-6, 14b-16, 22

    Responsorial Psalm: 146:5-6ab, 6c-7, 8-9a, 9bc-10

    Gospel: Mt 22:34-40

Loving our neighbors for the sake of God is a strong testimony that we love God.

"Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" asked the Pharisees. In response, Jesus explained that the fullness of the Law and the Prophets can be consolidated into two commandments: the first and most important, is a wholehearted love for God; the second is a direct outcome of the first. Yet, how can we love God, that we do not see? The answer to that is the second commandment. The love of neighbor expresses our love of God. We can not say that we love God if do not love our neighbors. 

Jesus said, in Matthew 25:40,"Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me." Jesus intimately identified himself with the least in society, so much so that whatever we do to them, we do it to Jesus Himself. St. Thomas Aquinas said that when a man is loved, God is loved, since man is the image of God.

Then, if we welcome and love others, especially the poor, the abandoned, the neglected, the sinners, the least, the last, and the lost, so to say, our brothers and sisters, children of the same Father, redeemed by the same blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, we profess that we truly love God: St. John said in 1 John 4:20-21 "If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. This is the commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother." 

However, if we love others only for the sake of loving them, we are not expressing our love for God. Loving them for the sake of God is a strong testimony that we love God.

Fr. Joel R. Lasutaz, SSS

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