God’s greatest commandment

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

WE should very well know, by now, what God’s greatest commandment is for us. We have to be clear about what God wants us to be and to do in this life, and this is none other than to love God with everything we have and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Later, we are told about how this love should be, what standard we have to use, what exemplar we have to follow. And that is to love everyone as Christ himself has loved us. It’s clear then that we really need to know how Christ has loved us, what his motives are, what range and scope his love covers, etc.

Yes, we are meant for loving. That’s what would bring us to the fullness of our humanity. That’s what would make us God’s image and likeness as he wants us to be. That’s why loving God and everybody else in the way God loves everyone, is the greatest and the second greatest commandment God has for us.

We need to be prepared to do serious and constant battle against our tendency to get self-centered and self-absorbed.  This, of course, is a very likely possibility, easily and quickly verifiable around. That’s because we actually contend with a great number of hostile or negative elements.

We can sometimes wonder if we can truly know and love God who is so supernatural and mysterious as to make us doubt whether we can have that possibility. We should wonder no more, because no matter how hard and apparently impossible that endeavor may be, all we have to do is to know and love our neighbor.

Let’s always have recourse to what St. John said in his first letter: “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And we have this commandment from him: whoever loves God must love his brother as well…” (4,20-21)

Said in another way, if we want God to love us, all we have to do is to love our neighbor. In this we have these words of Christ himself: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven…For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.” (Lk 6,36-38)

We also have to realize that true love involves a certain forcefulness, a sense of being driven. Where there is true love, we can only echo what Christ himself said: “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” (Lk 12,49)

Where there is love, we would be clear about what the real and ultimate purpose of our life is, we would have a good sense of direction even if we are presented with many alternative options, we would not mind the many difficulties and challenges we can encounter as we go along. In fact, we would find great meaning in them.

This is the ideal condition for all of us. Even if we are endowed only with the most phlegmatic and melancholic temperaments, something must be burning inside our heart that cannot help but burst into a flame, a flame of love, of self-giving, of serving without expecting any return. If it is not yet there, then let’s enkindle it.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com