Readings
2 Timothy 2:8-15
Mark 12:28-34
Reflection
Jesus teaches us the greatest commandment: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your strength… and love your neighbour as yourself. This is a whole‑life invitation. To love God with your heart is to offer your desires, your wounds, your hopes. To love God with your mind is to give your attention, your choices, your thoughts. To love God with your strength is to let your actions, your work, and your body become part of your worship. Loving God means nothing is held back.
So how do we love? Love is not just emotion. Love is a doing word. Love is prayer. Love is praise. Love is gratitude. Love is the daily effort to choose goodness when it would be easier not to. Love is pouring ourselves into God and into the people God places in our lives.
And then Jesus adds, “Love your neighbour.” Not just the easy neighbour. Not just the agreeable neighbour. Every neighbour.
I invite you to think of someone in your life who is hard to love. Hold their name gently in your mind. Now remind yourself that you are called to see them as Jesus sees them: worthy, beautiful, enough, dignified, loved. Not because of what they do, but because of who God is.
Let that truth soften something in you. Replace frustration or judgment with the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self‑control. Remember that God loves that person deeply. God has prepared a place for them in the kingdom, where their spirit — not their flaws — will remain.
And here is the hope: when we love like this, even imperfectly, Jesus whispers to us what he once said to a scribe who understood the commandment: “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”
Jo Mcdade – a Passionist.