Greatest Commandments

By Lisa Greey —

What are the world’s “commandments”?  We all have to admit # 1 is “me first.”  Many people are running around today thinking they are the center of their universe.  One man honks his horn as if that will help traffic move faster.  A woman rolls her eyes impatiently because the Starbucks barista isn’t making her tall latte with non fat milk fast enough.  A teenager insists his parents do not come into the mall with him.  A young girl yanks a toy away from her brother.  These are all signs of a “me” centered world.  Granted, there are more examples of the goodness and generosity of humanity, but humor me for a moment as we focus on self-centeredness.  The gospel today directly contradicts this me-centeredness.  It proposes another way to order our lives through two commandments.

#1: You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  What does it say? Love.  What does it not say? Ignore your God, say a one minute prayer to your God, or pretend your God is distant.  No, it says love him.  Love implies a relationship.  It implies a commitment, when we are “feeling it” and when we aren’t.  Love implies sacrifice.  Love implies a two way street – receiving something back.  It is easy to get caught up in the rules and regulations attached to faith, but the real key is this relationship of love.  When love is at the center of our lives, it makes all those rules and regulations much easier to live out.  When I remember that God created me as a woman of God who images him in my sexuality, in my femininity, in my body and soul – when I remember all the love involved in his creating me – it makes it much easier to live out chastity in my daily life.  When I remember that God is with me in the ups and downs of life, and that Jesus Christ experienced every human emotion and temptation and he can relate to my frustrations, dreams and hopes – it makes it much easier to follow Christ and conform my heart to him.  Take away that love, though, and my faith becomes pretty dry and meaningless.  I must love him with everything … my body, heart, soul, and mind.

#2:You shall love your neighbor as yourself. What? But my neighbor drives me crazy.  He always wants to talk to me on the bus, and I just want to listen to my iPod.  I can’t possible love him, much less, love him the way I love myself.  Well if you follow #1, #2 will flow from it.  When we love God we learn to love as he loves.  He loves everyone.  He loves the janitor at school, the kid with freckles, crazy Aunt Susan and yes, he loves you!  We are called to love our brothers and sisters in Christ.  Notice the second part of this commandment – “as yourself.”  This means we must love ourselves, but not in the”me” centered way.  We must love ourselves because, as we talked about last Sunday, we are made in God’s image and likeness.  We have great value.  We are a treasure.  That implies we should take care of our bodies – with exercise, eating right, and sleeping enough.  We should take care of our souls – by going to mass, taking time for prayer, being part of a church community and frequenting the sacraments.  We should take care of our minds – by going to school, getting good grades, and applying ourselves to our work.  With all this in place, we are prepared to go out and love others, even the people that drive us crazy!  We are able to put others first – to let someone go in front of us in the lunch line, to lend a hand to mom and dad around the house, and the list goes on and on.

An easy way to remember these commandments is with the acronym JOY.
J= Jesus (love Jesus)
O = Others (love others)
Y = You (love you)
May we all fulfill the greatest commandments through LOVE!