Jesus sums up the commandments in the Gospel today in two statements: to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. We have been thinking about loving God and now I want to reflect on loving our neighbor as ourselves. You would think that when Jesus says we are to love our neighbor as ourselves we would just go and do it. But sometimes we almost have to be taught by someone in our own time how to love our neighbor as ourselves. I think there is one person in recent years who above all has shown us how to love our neighbor as ourselves and that person is St. Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa). Again and again, she has spoken about seeing Jesus in others. What we do to others, we do to Jesus. She helped people in the most awful circumstances.
One evening we went out and we picked up
four people from the street. And one of them was in a most terrible
condition. I told the Sisters: “You take care of the other three; I
will take care of the one who looks worse.” So I did for her all
that my love can do. I put her in bed, and there was such a
beautiful smile on her face. She took hold of my hand, as she said
one word only: “Thank you”—and she died. I could not help but
examine my conscience before her. And I asked: “What would I say if
I were in her place?” And my answer was very simple. I would have
tried to draw a little attention to myself. I would have said: “I am
hungry, I am dying, I am cold, I am in pain,” or something. But she
gave me much more, she gave me her grateful love. And she died with
a smile on her face.
(Acceptance Speech for Nobel Peace Prize
in 1979. Also shared at National Prayer Breakfast
in Washington, D.C., Thursday, February 3, 1994.)
Loving like this is finding God hidden in the other person. Loving like this is not judging but being merciful and trying to understand the other person. Jesus said the Spirit is mightier than the flesh and so with Jesus there is no room for fear, but we can witness the truth with enthusiasm, with love, and humility. How was Mother Teresa able to love and witness as she did? She said she gets her energy from prayer. She wrote:
To be able to love one another, we must pray much, for prayer gives a clean heart and a clean heart can see God in our neighbor. If now we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten how to see God in one another. If each person saw God in his neighbor, do you think we would need guns and bombs?
Malcolm Muggeridge, was a British journalist, author, and media person, and he wrote Something Beautiful for God which is an account of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Muggeridge and his film crew were filming the nuns picking up the dying from the streets and bringing them to a home for the dying. Muggeridge wrote:
This Home for the Dying is dimly lit by small windows high up in the walls, and Ken was adamant that filming was quite impossible there. We had only one small light with us, and to get the place adequately lighted in the time at our disposal was quite impossible. It was decided that, nonetheless, Ken should have a go, but by way of insurance he took, as well, some film in an outside courtyard where some of the inmates were sitting in the sun. In the processed film, the part taken inside was bathed in a particularly beautiful soft light, whereas the part taken outside was rather dim and confused…Mother Teresa’s Home for the Dying is overflowing with love, as one senses immediately on entering it. This love is luminous, like the haloes artists have seen and made visible round the heads of the saints. I find it not at all surprising that the luminosity should register on a photographic film. (pages 41…44)
(story of another photographic miracle when a priest brought a hospital patient Holy Communion) At the time Muggeridge wrote Something Beautiful for God he was not a Catholic but about a decade later he converted to Catholicism and meeting Mother Teresa was largely responsible for his conversion. When we love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves, we are filled with light and miracles happen.
© Fr. Tommy Lane 2018
This homily was delivered in a parish in Pennsylvania.
More Homilies for the Thirty-First Sunday Year B
Loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength 2021
Related Homilies: Loving God with all our heart and our neighbor as ourselves
If You Love Me You Will Keep my Commandments
Pagan practices vs. loving God with all our heart
on love of neighbor: Seeing Jesus in others
Loving Others as Jesus Loved Us
Bear with one another Charitably - Love Your Children
If anyone wants to be first he must be servant of all
Second Reading Related: Old Testament priests and the Priesthood of Jesus 2009
stories loving God
stories about loving neighbor as oneself