How many of us hate ourselves? I never met a person who truly hated himself. More, we can find many people who are selfish, who love only themselves, and they do dislike, or even hate others.
How many of us have ever asked God to help us to love Him? To love God is a gift – a gift from God Himself.
What do we mean when we say: “Love God?†– To love God means to desire to please God. Christ’s command might have read: “Thou shall desire to please Godâ€.
Love of neighbor means the desire to do good to our neighbor. We cannot do good to God, but we can desire to please God. We can and must do well to our neighbor. By the way, one of the best ways to please God is to do good to our neighbor, to love our neighbors and others whom God put on our path of life.
Jesus told us several times that we who love God will keep God’s commandments. Several Sundays ago we saw that God’s commandments are a proof of God’s love for us. Keeping them is a proof of our love for Him. You come to Mass because God is pleased when you worship Him. You receive Holy Communion because God wants to be with you. You pray because God is pleased when you talk to Him. You respect your health and life and the health and life of others because that pleases God. To do these things is to love God. To do them we need God’s help. We know when we receive that help and push it away chances are that we are going against God’s commandments and that is sin.
So let’s love each other as we would love ourselves, than we will live in harmony as children of God, and that way we will be able to please God. Amen.