Thursday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time
The book of Tobit contains some of the best story-telling in the Bible- I hope you’ve enjoyed it over the last few days as much as I have. Reflecting on today’s ‘episode,’ I’m struck by the “noble purpose” from Tobit and Sarah’s prayer. Raguel still calls his wife “my love,” after many years of marriage. The noble purpose of marriage and family is love. In family life, we have to learn to love our children, our parents, and our siblings, whether they match our personality or are very difficult and different. There are many strengths to the modern tradition of children moving out of their parents’ home when they become an adult, but a weakness is that, living alone or with a chosen roommate, it’s easy to spend nearly all our time with people we prefer to be around, when they are in good moods. This can weaken our ability to love people who are difficult, wounded, different from us, or just in a bad mood.
Reflect for a moment; is it easier for you to go without, or to work harder, rather than changing the way you relate to the people around you?
Loving as God commands us to love will result in blessing, as today’s psalm proclaims: ‘Blessed is the one…who walks in the ways of the Lord.’ Love is the way. Love your neighbor as yourself, Jesus says. Are you always happy with yourself? Do you always want to spend time with yourself? Do you always like the person that you are? If you’re like me, you answered no to all these. But I do love myself, and if I can be as loving and forgiving of others as I am to myself, I’ll be on the way to being a much more caring, understanding, merciful person.
Perhaps the hardest part of today’s gospel is where Jesus starts; ‘the Lord God is one. You must love God with everything you are.’ For many years I have been asking myself and praying for the Spirit to show me how to Love God. I know and feel God’s love for me, but how do I respond in love? There are many answers to that question, but I have a hunch that most of them begin with Jesus’s unsolicited answer: Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Today and always, may we allow the Holy Spirit to shape our hearts to become greater lovers.
- Chris Nieport