True Love of God

November 3, 2024 Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time
Daily Readings:  Deuteronomy 6:2-6; Hebrews 7:23-28; Mark 12:28b-34

How do we love God?

Our readings today show us how. We love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength. In short, no ifs and no buts, not seasonal or situational. To love God is to love Him alone because when we do love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind and with all our strength things will fall into their proper places.

In all our actions and decisions then, we put God as the focus. When we keep our gaze on God, we will put our priorities in order thus ordering our decisions, choices, and actions. With such, there would be no confusion, conflict or error.

The problem is that while we profess our love of God, it is but usually a mere utterance. We love God but we put aside going to mass because we have something else to do. We love God but we don’t see and hear the pleadings of our poor brethren. We love God but we continue to insist on what we want. We love God but we only do what pleases us and is convenient to us and label the rest such as modesty, integrity, meekness, humility and forgiving as conditional or things of the past. We love God but we look at His law as optional.

So, it’s not true that we love God. Instead, we love ourselves – our ego, our pride.

Call to Action for Catholic Living:  Today, we are called to love God not according to our needs, situations or standards, but love Him as He loves us – whole, full, selfless and unconditional. This love that we profess for God is best seen and measured by the way we love others, especially those who cannot love us back.