The Christian Ideal Loving God and Loving Neighbour Loving God Introduction Loving God together with

loving Neighbour, form the core of Christian life. These are the two most important aspects that identify us as true Christians and followers of Christ. Loving God and loving our neighbour make us a royal race set apart. This is what Jesus wants us to be and we repeat these words very often at Mass. We must all learn to get beyond the words and thoughts and try by the Grace of God to practice what we say we believe in. We cannot be true friends of Jesus if we wilfully ignore his commandments. Jesus in the Gospel of St. Mark, says in response to a teacher of the law "The most important commandment is this " Hear ,O Israel the Lord our God ,the Lord is one. 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 neighbour as yourself." There is no commandment greater than these". Loving God is a Commandment its not a nice to have or do. With all our heart Loving God with al our heart is not necessarily an emotional kind of love. It is loving God with all our will. In loving God with all our heart we are not talking about love that is carnal, or based natural inclinations, self will, hope of repayment, or feelings or emotions which are changeable. Jesus call to love is based on a commitment, a decision to love. It is to express things in actions and deeds. St Therese of Lisieux who is ranked by some as the greatest Saint of modern times, says of love "How sweet is the way of love! True one may fail and be unfaithful to grace, but love knows how to draw profit from everything, and quickly consumes whatever may be displeasing to Our Lord, leaving in the heart only a deep and humble peace. Love shows itself by deeds"There is but one thing to be done here below: to love Jesus, and to save souls for Him that He may be more loved. We must not let slip the smallest opportunity of giving him joy. We must not refuse Him anything@ St. Paul's says in his letter to the Corinthians "I may be able to speak the languages of men and even angels, but if I have no love, my speech is no more than a noisy gong or a clanging bell. I may have the gift of inspired preaching; I may have all knowledge and understand all secrets; I may have all the faith needed to move mountains but if I have no love, I am nothing. I may give away everything I have, and even give up my body to be burnt, but if I have no love, this does me no good". "Love is patient and kind; it is not jealous or conceited or proud; Love is not ill mannered or selfish or irritable; Love does not keep record of wrongs; Love is not happy with evil, but is happy with the truth. Loves never gives up; and its faith , hope, and patience never fail. Love is eternal. Loving God with all our hearts means putting the Lord first in our lives. This requires a basic decision from us to obey him through our obedience of the commandments. It requires the development of a personal relationship with Him built up through prayer and regularly receiving the Blessed Sacrament. We cannot hope to love God if we do not talk to him regularly and get to know him. As a Jesuit priest said just before he died "We must always have Him as our companion. Even

though we at times reject Him, He is ever knocking at the doors of our hearts. His hope is to enter, live there with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and fill every tiny corner of our soul". So we love God with all our heart when when we choose what we believe God is asking of us, rather than just doing our own thing. With all our soul Then, loving God with all our soul. In the Old Testament the soul carries a meaning of life, it is integral to our physical existence and without a soul we are dead. And so to love God with all our soul is to love God with all our being, giving our lives to Christ. It is the supernatural aspect of our belief in God. The soul is the inner essence of our being or personality it's who we are . It's our conscience, our inner self, our identity. It's how we define who we are. It's our will, where we make our decisions and choices. The choices and decisions we make ultimately come back to our soul back to who we are and what we're made of. And then the decisions we make in life one after another become a series of choices, decisions put together in an ongoing pattern to determine our lifestyle and behavior. So, to love God with all your soul means that you will love him in the way you live, in the choices you make, in the behavior and lifestyle you adopt. With all our mind Loving God with all our minds denotes committed service. It is something we do rather than feel. St. John in his epistle tells us " My children, our love should not be just words and talk; it must be true love, which shows itself in action". In a practical way we love and serve God by trying to keep our minds uncluttered and striving for holiness. Whenever an evil thought enters our mind we try to immediately dismiss it and not to dwell on it asking Jesus to help us. We must endeavour always to use our minds according to God's truths and not according to the ways of the world. In this case we can often ask ourselves what does God want us to do in a particular set of circumstances. We will always get a positive response and that it will be the right thing to do in those circumstances. We should spend much more time of our working and recreational day thinking about God. This is a very useful exercise, the results of which are incalculable with regard to our goal of loving God. We can share the experiences of a 17th century Monk called Brother Lawrence, who in his monastery kitchen discovered an overwhelming delight in God's presence." A little perseverance, he said, was needed at first to form the habit of conversing all the time with God and referring all actions to him. However after a little care one felt stirred by his love without any trouble. We ought to act very simply with God, he advises speaking familiarly with Him, and asking for help in situations as they arise. God would not fail to give His help as he had often experienced. Thoughts he said spoil everything. All evil begins there. We must take care to set them aside as soon as we observe them not necessary for the moment or for our salvation, so that we can begin again our conversation with God, wherein is our only good ". We must try to as hard as it may be to have presence of God throughout the day. Trying to blot out all unpleasant distractions as soon as they arise. Praying short prayers through the day. Praying the Angelus at noon time. Avoiding gossip and slanderous conversations. Offering our work and everything we do to the glory of God. Offering as mortifications all of the unpleasant things that happen to us throughout the day. We must also use our minds actively for God's purposes, in this, God is also asking us to keep his commandments as a practical demonstration of our love.

Our catechism says that love is the most fundamental of our passions, which is aroused by the attraction of good. Love causes a desire for the absent good and the hope of obtaining it , this passion is satisfied in the pleasure and joy of the good possessed With all our strength Loving God with all our strength means keeping faith throughout our lives. Attending to the little everyday things of life. This means our time, money, energy, possessions, gifts, talents and abilities. St. Therese offers this advice. If it be His will that throughout your life you should feel repugnance to suffering and humiliation-if He permits all the flowers of your desires and your goodwill to fall to the ground without any fruit appearing, do not worry. At the hour of our death, in the twinkling of an eye, He will cause rich fruits to ripen on the tree of your soul. We give our time in prayer, by daily reading of the scripture, attending Mass perhaps even on week days if we have the opportunity. By being active in the community these are all examples of giving time to God. Giving our money means being generous to Church, family, friends, and those need. When we talk about giving back our gifts, talents and abilities, we are following Jesus parable of the Three Servants in which the Master entrusted five, three and one talents to the servants according to their abilities and he was very disappointed by the servant that did not use the one talent to gain benefit. God has given each and everyone of us gifts and talents which he wants us to use for the benefit of the community. God said in the parable to the servant who used the talents " well done you good and faithful servant, you have been faithful in managing small amounts, so I will put you in charge of large amounts. Come on in and share my happiness ". The Saints of our Church are wonderful examples of using their talents and being trusted by God. They have a strong love of God and we could learn about from them on how to follow their examples. Reading the Lives of the Saints can also assist in trying to perfect our love of God. One day nobody can predict when God is going to ask an account of all of us on how we have used the time, money, energy, possessions, gifts and abilities, He has blessed us with and so we must prepare ourselves so that we can give a good answer and receive His invitation to come in and share His happiness. Jesus our model in loving God In all these matters we must have in mind that our prime example in loving God is Jesus Christ. And when we think of this we can be reminded by Thomas'A Kempis in his book The Imitation of Christ and the quotation from this book as follows Keep constantly in mind the saying The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. Strive to withdraw your heart from love of visible things and direct your affections to things invisible. For those who follow only their own inclinations defile their conscience, and lose the grace of God. In St. John's gospel Jesus says " My food is to obey the will of the one who sent me and to finish the work he gave me to do ". With these words we too can have in mind the dedication and mission of Jesus Christ. In St. Luke's gospel we are reminded of the human nature of Jesus when he prays " Father if you will take this cup of suffering away from me. Not my will however but your will be done ". Even under considerable pressure Jesus is obedient unto death. In St. Mark's gospel we have an example of Jesus in prayer. " Very early the next morning, long before daylight, Jesus got up and left the house. He went out of town to a lonely place, where he prayed ". Again in the gospel of St. Matthew we see that Jesus always made time for prayer." After sending the people away, he went up a hill by himself to pray ".

The Challenge Loving God is not as vague and impractical as you may think. Loving God involves specific, actions, as well as decisions and personal commitments from each and everyone of us. We demonstrate our love by our actions. You cannot love God if you do not know him. You cannot know him if you do not talk to him and read his sacred scripture. To know God is to love Him. Jesus has showed us the way to true Christian love by his words and example as recorded in the Bible. In the words of another great saint of the church, St. Augustine. "We cannot win our crown unless we overcome, and we cannot overcome unless we enter the contest and there is no contest unless we have an adversary and the challenge our adversary brings." The hope is that we come to a little more awareness of the importance of God's commandment to love Him with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind and with all our strength.