The associated reading for this reflection can be found in your Every Sacred Sunday Mass journal or online here.
In today’s Gospel, we receive the two greatest commandments from Christ: to “love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind” and to “love your neighbor as yourself.”
I’ve reflected on the first of these commandments many times before, but reading the second commandment this round struck me strongly and posed a flurry of questions:
“What does this second commandment even mean, Lord?!”
“‘As yourself.’ As myself… Do I even love me as I love my neighbor?”
“Lord, who am I?”
And as these questions ring out from my heart, He reminds of this Truth:
I am your beloved. Created in your image and likeness. Just as there is no one like You, there is no one like me. Unique and incomparable; a treasured, chosen gift from you to this world, loved beyond measure.
In praying with this further, I realize how we view our own self flows into how we view and treat others. No stranger to the never ending Insta-scroll, I wonder how often we compare our life to the highlight reels of the latest “influencers” or even our own peers? Do we exit the app feeling hopeful and filled, or empty with envy or hate? Sadly, it usually isn’t the first.
With so much noise in our world today, we must learn to tune out the chaos and tune into the truth: we are God’s beloved sons and daughters. We can only truly see the dignity of others if we can also see that we too are made in God’s image and that our own life is a gift.
Lord, may we see ourselves as you see us. Love ourselves as you love us.
May we see the Christ who desires to be in us and in our neighbors. And in turn, love our neighbors as you so immensely do.