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Manila Bulletin devider Opinion devider All or nothing

All or nothing

Published Oct 31, 2021 12:12 am
Through Untrue Fr. Rolando V. dela Rosa, O.P. Today’s Gospel reading tells us that if you love God, it's all or nothing. "You shall love the Lord your God with ALL your heart, with ALL your soul, with ALL your mind and with ALL your strength" (Mark 12:30).Love Him or leave Him No compromises. But if we give God all our love, there will be no love left for our neighbor orourselves. Is God so self-centered that He would not allow us to love anyone or anything else? In another Gospel passage, that appears to be so. Jesus demands that we love Him not only totally, but also exclusively: “Everyone who follows me but does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26).  We will see the meaning of this commandment better if we connect it with how St. Thomas Aquinas understood love. He wrote that love has the power to transform the lover into the likeness of the beloved. We become what we love. So, loving God transforms us to become like Him, who loves in a perfect way because He is Himself love. Loving God totally and supremely does not exhaust our capacity to love. In fact, it is enlarged.By becoming like Him, we are enabled to love ourselves and others the way God loves us.  This is why the second of all the commandments: "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Mark 12:31), has been perfected by Jesus when He said: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another just as I have loved you" (John 12:34). The criterion for loving our neighbor is no longer our love for ourselves, but God's love for us, as manifested in Jesus. The commandment to love God also points to a moral requirement of authentic love: INTEGRITY. Jesus said, ““For, where your treasure is, there your heart will also be” (Matthew 6:21). A person with integrity loves God because he finds in Him the greatest treasure that is beyond all treasures.  A person with integrity is single-willed. Jesus said: "No one can serve successfully two masters" (Matthew 6:24). To attempt to do so is to become a person with a divided heart, divided mind, and divided will. To present a front of wholeness, he resorts to hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is basically lying to other people. Soon, when this becomes a habit, lying becomes our way of life, and we no longer see anything wrong with it. Maintaining integrity is difficult. It one of the crosses we have to bear. Jesus said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must carry his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24).We became Christians without costing us anything. But to remain as true Christians is a daily decision we have to make.  Every decision entails a renunciation. So if we decide to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we must be ready to give up everything that would hinder us from doing so. Love entails sacrifice, ALWAYS.

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Fr. Rolando V. dela Rosa O.P. THROUGH UNTRUE
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