In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is asked: “teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22: 36-40)

It is a rather tall order for us to faithfully live these two commandments. To the extent that we strive to make our God number one in our lives impacts everything about us — our priorities, our choices, our morals, how we see the world and other people; our vision of life itself. Reflecting on Jesus’ primary commandments is such an important focus of personal examination. And, yes, in some ways it is easy to make a creedal statement of belief in God as the source of all that I am and do, but that second commandment, the call to ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ presents a more difficult challenge for us. 

In a humbler moment, perhaps all of us admit that we don’t really love others in the way Jesus mandates. We are decent, good-hearted persons, but we know that there’s sometimes a battle within to truly forgive another, whether that person is one we know, or a complete stranger. 

An Irish Jesuit priest, Michael Paul Gallagher, put it well when he wrote: “You probably don’t hate anyone, but you can be paralyzed by daily negatives. Mini-prejudices and knee-jerk judgements can produce a mood of undeclared war. Across barbed wire fences, invisible bullets fly.” (In Extra Time)

We are relational beings living in various communities…with a significant other, in families, schools, work places, towns, friendships, parishes, etc. Community is first of all a quality of the heart. It grows from the spiritual knowledge that we are alive not for ourselves but for one another. As we strive to make God number one in our lives, may that relationship empower us to not so much ponder how we can make community, but how we can develop and nurture giving hearts. In so doing, we might find ourselves growing in the ability to more naturally live Jesus’ second commandment — ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’ And, in nurturing giving hearts, may we discover that divine virtue of forgiveness that we can readily extend to those in need.

— Reflections appears regularly on the religion page. The column features a variety of local writers, coordinated through the Monroe Area Clergy Group. Msgr. Larry M. Bakke is pastor for St. Clare of Assisi Parish and director of the Apostolate to the Handicapped for the Diocese of Madison.