Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
“Love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High.” The world declares that we love those who love us, but no more than that. God, however, calls us to a higher form of love. A love that excels us and our earthly needs wants, and worldviews. St. John Chrysostom speaks on this love, which he calls spiritual love, when he says, “for nothing earthly engenders it, neither gain, nor kindness, nor nature, nor time, but it descends from Heaven.” The love with which Our Lord calls us to love is the same love that He loves us with. His love led Him to a cross, a cross where He died for the very people who put Him there.
And this love cannot come from us, but only Our Lord who is in Heaven, and in every host of the Eucharist. “But it descends from Heaven.” If the love that we are called to love with comes from Our Lord and not us, then that means that to do His will, we must first go to Him. Go to Him in Mass, the Eucharist, the Sacraments, and the Church. But also, as Our Lord declares in Matthew 6:6, we must go to Him in the silence of our rooms and pray with our hearts to Our Father. Just as blood gives life to the body, prayer gives life to the soul. And just as the heart pumps the blood to the body, so does the Church and the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist, pump prayer to our soul. To love how God loves and how Our Lord Jesus Christ wishes us to love, we must go to Him and sit at His feet and listen, just as Mary does in Luke 10:39. Go to prayer, go to the Eucharist. With that, you will find life. With that, you will find spiritual love.
Reflection by Weston, seminarian
Posted in Articles for Ordinary Time, Daily Reflections