October 26, 2014 - 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
Love is the
greatest commandment.
But love is
not about rules and regulations, ordinances and laws.
Love is a
command to do something, the command to do something about our relationships.
A four
year-old child had an elderly neighbor had just lost his wife. One day she saw
him sitting in his yard crying, so she went over and climbed into his lap and
just sat there.
When her
mother asked what she was doing she replied, “Nothing, I just helped him cry.”
Love is a
command to do something, the command to do something about our relationships.
A young boy
sat at a diner and asked the waitress how much was an ice cream sundae. Fifty-cents
came the reply.
The pulled
the coins out of his pocket and studied them carefully.
How much is
a plain ice cream? Thirty-five cents.
I’ll take
the plain ice cream.
When the
boy finished his ice cream he paid the cashier and left. When the waitress came
back to wipe the counter she found fifteen cents placed neatly beside the empty
dish.
Love is a
command to do something, the command to do something about our relationships.
The command
is to love God and neighbor.
Do we
follow this command?
We all need
assurance that we are loved. We all need to feel the loving touch of another. We
all need the warmth of another’s cheek. We all need the comfort of another’s
arms embracing us.
Our
neighbors come in remarkable varieties.
Ranging
from delightful to classy to funny to irritating
to
challenging to bothersome to downright enraging.
It’s easy
to love a neighbor who picks up the paper and feeds the dog while we’re away.
It’s more
difficult to love a neighbor who spreads gossip about us all over town.
It’s most
difficult to love a neighbor who blares his boom box at the stop sign outside
our window at two o’clock in the morning.
Let us commit
ourselves, here and now, to reach out to a neighbor in need.
It could be
as simple as visiting a sick or elderly relative; or having a cup of coffee with
a friend who hasn’t been to Mass in a while; or doing a good deed for someone
without expecting something in return.
Are we
willing to love and to be loved? To care and to be cared for? To hold and to be
held?
Above all
else, we must be people of love. Love must come first.
Love must be
the center of our lives.
Love was
central for Jesus. It was so central that he gave his very life out of love for
us.
We can get
everything else just right but if we don’t have love, we don’t have anything at
all.
As we
approach the Eucharistic table, do we realize that the bread and wine are gifts
of love?
These gifts
of love come from the one who gave his very life for us, the one who gave us
the two greatest commandments:
Love the
Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind and
love your neighbor as yourself.
The famous
children’s poet Shel Silverstein puts it this way:
Said the
little boy, “Sometimes I drop my spoon,”
Said the
little old man, “I do that too.”
The little
boy whispered, “I wet my pants.”
“I do that
too,” laughed the old man.
Said the
little boy, “I cry often.”
The old man
nodded, “So do I.”
“But worst
of all,” said the boy, “It seems
Grown-ups
don’t pay attention to me.”
And he felt
the warmth of a wrinkled old hand.
“I know
what you mean,” said the little old man.
Love is a
command to do something, the command to do something about our relationships.
