LOVE FULFIL ALL LAW AND PERFECT WORSHIP

Friday, third week of Lent/2024
Reflection from Friar Nicholas Okeke,OP

Theme: Love fulfils all Laws and perfects worship

Through meditation on the word of God and prayerful contemplation of God’s love for us, we come to perfection in listening and obeying the will of the Father. Through the eyes of love, we attain a better grasp of the evil of our sins and repent of them. Our love for God also enables us to understand that God’s infinite love guides his dealings with us in the covenant relationship he established with us. Thus, we hear the loving plaint of God in the first reading from prophet Hosea, expressing his love for Israel and for each of us. “I will heal their disloyalty, I will love them with all my heart, for my anger has turned from them. I will fall like dew on Israel. He shall bloom like the lily, and thrust out roots like the poplar, his shoots will spread far.” This love for God is not acquired by self but given by God to those who are waiting for it and willing to cooperate with him. Love for God is daily poured into our hearts if we seek the knowledge of God, who is all tenderness and compassion. We must never allow the evil one to suggest or put any slur on the holy name of our God or his divine will working for our salvation. He attempts to do this daily by wrong interpretations of the challenging situations and events that happen to us. Scripture says our situations would have been worse if God’s love had not mitigated their effects for our salvation and out of pity for us. We must never nurture wrong thoughts against God, for such opens the door of our soul to the enemy. “For the ways of the Lord are straight, and virtuous men walk in them, but sinners stumble.”

We gain an insight into our Lord’s reply to the scribe who put a question to him on the issue of the commandments. “Which is the greatest of commandments? Jesus replied, ‘This is the first: Listen, Israel, the Lord our God is the one Lord, and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.” The demand for us to love God is something that would have been natural if not for the original sin. The salvation that Jesus Christ brings to us is the renewal of the human mind and the restoration of our desire for God as our ultimate good. To have this salvation wrought for us by Jesus Christ fitted into us, we must work daily to purify our mind, heart, and will of earthly or fleshly desires and direct them to God alone. The daily exposure to the word of God achieves this in us. Jesus, the Lamb of God, purifies our minds, hearts, and wills to love God as we should. The scribe understood the divine wisdom in the answer our Lord gave him. “Well spoken, Master; what you have said is true: that he is one and there is no other. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself, this is far more important than any holocaust or sacrifice.” The love of God is the perfection of religion, for it is the union of God and a soul. It is the purpose for which God made us: to unite us with Himself. “What has Ephraim to do with idols any more when it is I who hear his prayer and care for him?”

Let us pray: Grant us, Lord, to hold you daily as our ultimate good and last end so that we may love you with all our heart, mind, and strength in perfect worship.    

 

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