Love Thy Neighbor: 

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  There is no commandment greater than these.”  Matthew: 22: 34-40

            Saint Matthew speaks to us today with one of the most important scriptures we can read as Christians.  What we must remember is that there are two parts to this Gospel.  The first part seems obvious and acceptable right?  “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.”  We wake up with the understanding that we are to love the Lord.  We go to church with the intention of loving the Lord.  We stress the importance of loving the Lord to our children daily and seemingly in every lesson we attempt to teach them.  “What would Jesus do?”, “Would Jesus be happy if we did this or that?”, etc.  I can see it in the way our students behave during mass that they understand the importance of showing love to Christ Jesus. 

            The second part of the Gospel is where many of us fail.  In some cases, that failure is extreme.  “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  Many still ask what this statement means exactly and, to be blunt, it is quite simply that whatever love you have for yourself needs to be equal to the love you have for others.  The better question may be “who is my neighbor”?  Fortunately, St. Luke answers this question in the story of the Good Samaritan when the lawyer challenges Jesus with the same question “who is my neighbor?”.  Jesus instructs us that, as Christians, EVERYONE is our neighbor thus, if we are to love our neighbor as ourselves, we are to love EVERYONE as ourselves.  Yes, everyone.  What we need to stop doing however, is asking who our neighbor is and begin asking “who am I?”  Am I someone who, like the Samaritan, gives help when help is needed?  Am I kind?  Do I judge others because they do not look like me, talk like me, dress like me, have nice things, don’t have nice things, live here or there, etc.?  Am I someone who loves, without question, my neighbor as I love myself? 

            In the constant distractions of this world, we must listen to God’s message to us by choosing love for God over the things of this world.  We must listen to God’s message by choosing to love others just as, if not more, than we love ourselves.  We must understand that it is our responsibility as Christians to build up His Church with ALL those who are in need of Christ’s love.  We have the opportunity, through Jesus, to walk in the Kingdom of Heaven because someone besides Jesus loved us as they loved themselves.  Won’t you be willing to give that opportunity to another through that same love which has been shown to you? 

Mr. Swann/Principal

Our Lady of Mount Carmel