Have You Given God Your ALL?

We all have things that are of importance to us; family, faith, job, health etc. If you were asked to choose from among the things that are important to you which one would be first on your list of importance?

In today’s Good News from Mark 12: 28-34, we hear Jesus being asked the question about what is the most important (first) of all the commandments. Jesus answers love of God and love of neighbor are right there as being the most important.

When I hear Jesus saying, “You shall love your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength,” I think of the first time I fell in love. Everything I did and thought about was centered on the one I fell in love with. I was in a different stratosphere and I felt good about everyone and everything. So when I look back at that time I compare it with what Jesus says and ask myself if I have loved God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. What about the neighbor that is not so nice?

St. Therese, in the book, The Story of a Soul, gives me encouragement by the following;

“Ah! Lord, I know you don’t command the impossible. You know better than I do my weakness and imperfection; You know me very well that never would I be able to love my Sisters as You love them, unless You, O my Jesus, loved them in me. It is because You wanted to give me this grace that You made Your new commandment. Oh! How I love this new commandment since it gives me the assurance that Your will is to love in me all those You command me to love.”