Can love effect
transformation in your life?
From the time of
the Book of Exodus, it has been clear that God expects God’s people to have
compassion for others. Having given
Moses the Ten Commandments, God proceeds to relate a lengthy series of additional
instructions to the prophet, a substantial number of which have to do with the
Israelites’ treatment of their neighbors. You
shall not molest or oppress an alien, God intones: the Israelites must care for widows and orphans
alike, as well as for the poor and vulnerable.
Their justice must be God’s justice, with compassion as their first
principle. God has loved them, and so
are they to love others. If God is our strength, as Psalm 18 suggests, we must
emulate God’s care for us and give thanks for it by loving all those we meet.
Jesus will return
to this message in Matthew’s Gospel, when he is challenged by the Pharisees to
identify which commandment in the law is
the greatest. His response to them –
You shall love the Lord, your God, with
all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind – goes straight
to the primacy of love of God and other.
We are, Jesus tells the Pharisees, to live lives of love, with all we have
and all we are, holding nothing back. It
is a lesson Paul knows the Thessalonians have mastered, as they have become a model for all believers. They have taken the Gospel to heart, not just
proclaiming the word, but living it, even amidst affliction.
Are we willing to allow
ourselves to be transformed through the love of God? Are we ready to effect transformation in
others? Are we willing for others to
effect transformation in us? To do so,
we must start by recognizing Jesus not only in Eucharist, but in all others
around us, and to allow their love to transform our lives as our love and
compassion transform theirs. Only then
are we living the essential commandments of our faith.
This post is based
on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: Wordle
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