The greatest commandment that Jesus puts before us this Sunday is very familiar to us, the question is, do we really understand what Jesus is telling us in this commandment? When Jesus says that we are to love God with all of our heart, soul and mind, he is essentially telling us to love God with our entire being! He does not say to love God just for an hour on Sunday or to just thank Him for our food a minute before we eat or a few minutes before we go to bed. God wants the whole package, or as my mother used to say, “The whole kit and caboodle.” I still have not found out what a caboodle is but I would imagine the phrase means pretty much everything. So if God wants the “all of us,” how would we go about giving it to Him? Prayer would certainly be a start but if one were not a contemplative hermit, it would be very difficult indeed to pray during all of our waking hours. The clue to this problem is in the second part of the commandment, that of loving our neighbor as ourselves. We demonstrate our love of God in the way that we treat and love each other. We are to care for our family, our friends, our acquaintances and yes even our enemies with the dignity that is due to them by being fellow rational creations of God. As we all know this can be very challenging at times, this is why God has given us His Church, along with the sacraments and the graces that we obtain from them. With these tools to aid us we can strive to do our best, drawing on the gifts of the Holy Spirit within us, to demonstrate the love and caring that God calls us to, for one another. Amen
Your servant in Christ,
Deacon Bill
The Spirit Speaks to Us 