Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

Jesus answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.” (Lk 10:27)

Help me, Lord, to receive your love, that I may make you manifest in loving well, both myself and my neighbour.

Additional scripture passages

• Deuteronomy 10:12-13
• Psalm 133

Commentary

The answer Jesus draws out of the lawyer, from the well-known commandments of God, appears simple. However, the command to love God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind will be a constant challenge, requiring a lifelong determination to learn, reflect and seek radical change in ourselves through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The instruction to love our neighbours “as ourselves” demands equal consideration. To love and value ourselves as God would wish demands intimate relationship. Is God saying that we cannot love our neighbour fully unless we love ourselves? It seems so, which is an immense challenge for so many of us. Do we recognise that we live in the glory of the love of God, whose compassionate gaze is always upon us. We are God’s beloved creation, made in God’s image, and adored.

God’s commandment to love, calls for deep commitment and means abandoning ourselves entirely, offering our hearts and minds to serve God’s will. God’s grace to us is never ending. Ask, says God, and we will receive such grace to follow Christ’s example, the one who offered himself up completely and said, “Not my will but yours be done” (Lk 22:42) demonstrating great love to all humanity, including his enemies.

We do not get to choose our neighbours. Sometimes we must cross difficult barriers to serve them, rather than walking by. Loving means being attentive to their needs, accepting who they are, with humility, encouraging their hopes and aspirations. Christian unity demands the same humility – in Christ, we are one. Let’s learn to celebrate difference and glory in Christ’s unifying life, death and resurrection – inaugurating a new way of living available to all.

Reflection

Beloved, my heart is for you.

I created you, I know you.

Your name fills me with delight.

My every action, reaction, thought, emotion

and prayer for you is founded

on love at its highest.

Receive my compassion,

bask in my gentleness,

delight in my joyful kindness.

Let me cherish you –

let me die for you –

may my heart become your heart.

A renewed heartbeat,

flowering within you, 

unfolding its gentle,

love-soaked vision;

a courageous, unswerving hope

bursting with grace.

Dear one,

allow heaven to manifest

in every human encounter,

tenderising it

with love’s dignity

and promise.

Prayer

Lord, give us the grace to know you deeply, in order to love you entirely. May the gift of your Holy Spirit enable our eyes, ears and minds to receive the unconditional love with which you love us. Purify our hearts that we may always be ready to love our neighbour, however different, as ourselves. Through the self-giving life of Christ our Lord. Amen.