Loving Without Limits

If we are to truly love, we must not include some and exclude others.  We also cannot love part time.  To truly love we must love with all of our being.  As the scholar of the law answered Jesus, we must love God with all our heart, being, strength, and mind and love our neighbors as ourselves.  Only then, we are told, will we live.  Loving and living go hand in hand - to truly live, we must love, and in loving, we are able to live meaningful and joyful lives. 

Love also does not discriminate.  Love does not recognize political affiliations, skin colors, places of birth, languages, age, religious backgrounds, etc.  Love only recognizes the person.  In the same way, the Good Samaritan did not care whether the man on the side of the road was from Samaria or Judea, Jewish or Gentile.  All he saw was a man hurt and in need of help.  All he saw was a man his God created, a man in which his God breathed His very Spirit.  Love recognizes God.  And so, the Samaritan man was moved with compassion and helped the wounded man, but not with the mentality of self-righteousness, rather a sense of necessity and desire.  He helped the man because it was what he was to do, the right thing to do, the moral thing to do.  He helped the man because he understood what love really was. 

When we encounter wounded men on the side of the road, how do we respond?  Do we shrug and walk away, expecting someone else will help?  Do we see him from afar and walk on the other side of the street?  Do we walk by slowly trying to see what's happened to him while trying to avoid eye contact?  Or, do we go up to the man and ask "Are you ok?  May I help you?"

If we think we are people who love, let us reflect on our actions.  Do my actions really reflect the love that my mouth and heart professes to possess?  Let us take up this challenge to love and so when I see a man on the side of the road, I will walk up to him, bend down, look into his eyes and say, "You will be okay.  May I please help you?"

Father, teach me to love and to not let my selfish desires control my thoughts and actions.  Give me the grace the persevere in Your love, so that in loving I may truly live.
The Parable of the Good Samaritan by Francesco Bassano

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