Vigils Reading – 31st Sunday

OUR REASON FOR LOVING

From a commentary by St Francis de Sales1

◊◊◊

Because God created us in is own image and likeness, he ordained that our

love for one another should be in the image and likeness of the love we owe him,

our God. He said: You must love the Lord our God with your whole heart. This

is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it. You must love

your neighbor as yourself.

What is our reason for loving God? God himself is the reason we love him;

we love him because he is the supreme and infinite goodness. What is our

reason for loving ourselves? Surely because we are the image and likeness of

God. And since all men and women possess this same dignity we love them as

ourselves, that is, as holy and living images of the Godhead. It is as such that we

belong to God through a kinship so close and a dependence so lovable that he

does not hesitate to call himself our Father, and to name us his children. It is as

such that we are capable of being united to him in the fruition of his sovereign

goodness and joy. It is as such that we receive his grace and that our spirits are

associated with his most Holy Spirit and rendered, in a sense, sharers in the

divine nature.

So it is then that the same charity produces together acts of love of God

and of our neighbor. As Jacob saw that the same ladder touching heaven and

earth was used by the angels both for ascending and descending, so we can be

sure that the same charity cherishes both God and our neighbor, raising us even

to spiritual union with God, and bringing us back to loving companionship with

our neighbors.

It must always be understood, however, that we love our neighbors for

this reason, that they are made in the image and likeness of God, created to

communicate in his goodness, share in his grace, and rejoice in his glory.

To have a Christian love for our neighbors is to love God in them, or them

in God; it is to cherish God alone for his own sake, and his creatures for love of

him. When we look upon our neighbors, created in the image and likeness of

God, should we not also say to each other: “Look at these people he has made –

are they not like their maker?” Should we not be drawn irresistibly toward

them, embrace them, and be moved to tears for love of them? Should we not call

down upon them a hundred blessings? And why? For love of them? No indeed,

since we cannot be sure whether, of themselves, they are worthy of love or hate.

Then why? For love of God, who created them in his own image and likeness,

and so capable of sharing in his goodness, grace, and glory; for love of God, I say,

unto whom they exist, for whom they exist, through whom they exist, for whom

they exist, and whom they resemble in a very special manner.

This is why divine Love not only repeatedly commands us to love our

neighbors, but also itself produces this love and pours it out into our hearts,

since they bear its own image and likeness; for just as we are the image of God,

so our holy love for one another is the true image of our heavenly love for God.