Love God, Love our Neighbour, Love Self ?

We have heard it all before:  ‘Love your God….. love your Neighbour as yourself’…    But have we truly HEARD it?

 During the Mission month of October it was a good time to test our belief.   A month where we needed to concentrate not only on those who have suffered and needed our help, but to heed the call of Pope Francis .. ‘to go forth to the peripheries of our world as messengers and agents of compassion.’ It is a reminder that the Mission for all of us is to Listen and then Act with conviction!

 The language of the First Reading is one of plenty.   The Commandments seen as life giving. The whole history of the Old Testament was a journey of ‘forgetting God’s great love and then being reconciled.’  I guess we could put ourselves in that catagory but we are so much more blessed to know that Christ our High Priest has spoken for us!  Yes, we have representatives in our Church who lead us but we, as baptized in the Priesthood of Christ, all have a role in enacting that great command to love our neighbour as our self. We may tend to forget that the healthy love of self is important for us as we go on this Mission.

 Self love refers to our ability to hold ourselves in esteem and have confidence in our worth, ‘we are God’s work of art’  Eph 2:10  no matter what happens around us.  We do not depend on others to tell us who we are!

‘God is love; we are created in God’s image; and Jesus commanded that we be what we already are.

Your True Self, God’s Love in you, cannot be exhausted. Material gifts decrease when you give them away. Spiritual gifts, by contrast, increase the more you use them. Yes! You get more love by letting it flow through you, just as modelled by the Trinity. If you love, you will become more loving. If you practice patience, you will become more patient.’ Richard Rohr

So, as we move to respond to the Synodal Process let us do it with confidence that we are great Lovers and moved by the knowledge that we are doing God’s work.

In celebrating All Saints Day and All Souls this week let our true missionary spirt lead us to bring others -neighbours - on our journey.

God bless ,                                                                                                    Sr Marie