HOS 14: 2-10
PS 81: 6C- 8A, 8BC-9, 10-11 AB, 14 and 17
MT 4:17
MK 12: 28-34
As a Jesuit Volunteer in Syracuse,
NY, I had the wonderful blessing of being a L’Arche assistant in a home where
persons with and without disabilities live and create home together. This
community of folks taught me so much about relationship and about love and
about faith. One of the core members, a man with intellectual disabilities who
lived in one of the homes, always offered up prayers for L’Arche communities
around the world when we would gather. For him, faith was about an outpouring
of love, love for his housemates, for L’Arche, and for God, and he was always
reminding me that my own faith has grown and continues to grow from its roots
in love.
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus
establishes the two most important commandments, both of which focus on how
people of faith are called to love. Jesus responds to an inquiring scribe, “The
first is this: Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love
the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind,
and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as
yourself.” The scribe agrees with Jesus, and adds that following these two
directives to love God and to love one’s neighbor "is worth more than all
burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
I think that this reading points to
the heart of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection and to the heart of the
Lenten season. Today’s Gospel points to the central call for all of us to love.
For my friend from L’Arche, faith is not just about piety; it is about caring
for one another in wholeness and in brokenness. For him, living out the Gospel
is not about punishment for those who do not adhere strictly enough; it is
about choosing to love as an imperfect response to the unimaginable, perfect
love that God has for all of us.
I feel that Lent is a time to deepen
and cultivate our love for God, our love for neighbors, and our openness to
neighbors who we have failed to recognize before. I hope that prayer, fasting,
and almsgiving guide me and all of us toward greater love and renewed
commitment to the neighbors among us who are most vulnerable and marginalized.
Questions to Guide Reflection and
Prayer:
1.
What experiences have shaped the
ways you love God and your neighbors?
2.
Who do you consider and love as your
“neighbor?” Who have you failed to recognize and love as a “neighbor?”
3.
How are you called to love this
Lent? How are the communities of which you are a part called to love?
Emily Cybulla is a first year
medical student at SLU. She graduated in 2015 from Loyola University Chicago
and served as a Jesuit Volunteer in Syracuse, NY at L’Arche, an intentional
community of folks with and without disabilities, before starting at SLU.
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