Spiritual Thoughts for the week

July 11th

In today's Gospel we hear a version of the famous "Golden Rule:" Jesus tells a lawyer that the essence of the law is "to love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." In other words, love God and love and treat others as you would want yourself to be loved and treated. Sometimes we are told that there is a dichotomy between the God of the Old Testament and the New Testament, that the God of the Hebrews was a "God of wrath" and the New Testament a "God of love." This is actually a false distinction , as we can see that Jesus, a faithful Jew, shares that the heart of His God's law, and the very heart of God, IS LOVE. What Jesus did denounce was human misinterpretation of that law, which focused more on external practices of holiness than on obeying God's law of love and mercy by our reverence for God and compassion for others. This is a call that all of us, Catholics included, need a reminder of from time to time, regardless of our religious background.