Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

The essence of God is love, and everything about God is love. Love is the driving force of all His actions, and the meaning of His Law is love. This is what we have to remember when we obey the Lord and His commandments. God did not wish to burden us with His laws, or to punish us, but instead they were meant to bring us all closer to Him, and that we may learn to love Him more and more.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, God gave His people Israel, the gift of the Ten Commandments, His own laws in which He gave them guidelines in life of what to do in order to live in God’s favour. But even though there are indeed ten laws in the Ten Commandments, as Jesus had revealed to His people, that they can be grouped together into two main laws, to love God and to love one another.

Indeed, this is the essence of love, as taught by Jesus to His disciples, that first of all we have to give it all in complete dedication to God, our Lord, our Creator, and our loving Father. Then, we also need to give our hearts, filled with love, to each other, for we are all equal, servants of the same One God, and the children of that same God who created us. We are all brothers and sisters to one another.

Obeying the law must not mean that we blindly obey to the letter, the words of the Law, or make empty proclamations and professions, to fulfill the Law superficially. Our observation of the Law must be genuine and true, filled with total love and dedication to all, to God and our fellow mankind. Thus, we have to have love in ourselves, and fill our words, actions and deeds with genuine love.

These days, it is difficult to love genuinely, as love itself in our understanding had been twisted such that we no longer understand what love truly means. Our understanding of love had been corrupted with the pleasures of the flesh and the lust and greed of this world, with material goods and possessions in train. That is how our families and marriages today are under threat, because they were often no longer based on love.

In our faith and in our life, we have to give our attention and focus on the Lord, devoting ourselves wholly to Him, that we will not serve or worship any other gods, and keep holy His Name and His presence, that we will not sully It by any form of blasphemy or misconduct. We have to put our complete faith and trust in Him.

But we cannot just love God alone, for to love God completely also means that we must also give our love to our brethren, especially those in need of that love. God Himself said through Jesus that all that we do for the least, the lost, and the rejected ones of our society, we do it for the Lord Himself, and therefore, in the same argument, to love our brethren means to love God Himself.

And because God is love Himself, it is impossible for us to not love Him and just love one another. Our love cannot be not based on Christ. Yes, the love of God must and is always at the centre of our love, the love that we show to one another. Outside of that, the love we have is not true and genuine love, but one that is tainted by the evils of the world.

We have to be able to distinguish true love from lust and desires of the world. We have often confused between love and lust, and between love and desire for pleasure and for material goods of the world. That is why we end up not doing the will of God, because we mistook His true desire for us with the desire and things of this world.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we therefore should renew our commitment in faith to our Lord, by loving Him all the greater, through our obedience and following His will, doing our acts all in accordance with God’s love and care for us. Let us not forget our brothers and sisters out there who need our love and attention.

May we grow stronger in love, that day by day we may be ever more solid in our dedication and faith to the Lord. Let us not be hesitant to love God who is our Father, who loves us all with all of His might and care for each one of us. Let us never be separated from God’s love and remain ever in His grace. Amen.