(Source from The Word Among Us)

You shall love the Lord. .. .. . You shall love your neighbor. (Matthew 22:37, 39)

Why are these two commandments the greatest? Because they encapsulate everything that God had spoken to Moses and the Israelites. As Jesus told the Pharisees, “The whole law and the prophets depend” on them (Matthew 22:40).

As important as these two commandments are, however, we might be tempted to think they’re impossible to follow. That’s because too often, we associate love only with warm and fuzzy feelings. But love goes beyond emotion and is sometimes even independent of it. In other words, it’s not so much what we feel as how we act.

Today’s first reading shows us that to love our neighbor, especially the most vulnerable among us, we must act justly toward them (Exodus 22:20-26). These laws, given to Moses by God himself, may have been what Jesus had in mind when he was talking to the Pharisees that day. Jesus knew that in order to love someone, we don’t have to necessarily feel an emotional connection. We don’t even have to know them personally. But we do need to care for them and make sure they are being treated justly.

The same is true in our relationship with the Lord. We might be going through a dry spell in our prayer time. Maybe we don’t even have the desire to pray. But when we make time to be with Jesus, whatever our feelings at that moment, we are loving him.

Each day, whether you wake up feeling energetic and cheerful or tired and cross, you will be presented with opportunities to love God and your neighbor in concrete ways. Don’t pass them up! By itself, each specific action you take might not seem particularly noteworthy. Maybe you don’t feel any love as you do them. But in fact, when you extend yourself for another time and again, you are doing exactly what God has called you to do.

“Jesus, help me to see how I can love you and my neighbor today.”