25 October 2020
Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
“I don’t know how to explain why you should care about other people.” This has been a common frustration as of late. We may have a moral intuition that loving other people is a good thing, even that loving all other people is a good thing, without having any sort of ability to defend the claim. Linking the two great loves of love of God and neighbor makes each of them stronger, and not only places love of neighbor on a firmer foundation, but gives this love clearer demands.
Without love of God, our love of neighbor may tend to be restrictive. We naturally fall into in-groups and out-groups. You are part of the right tribe, you are in proximity to me, caring for you provides social benefits to me. Some of these things may be the beginnings of love, but they hardly get at the fullness.
To love God fully is to acknowledge that all others have a common origin as us, and a common dignity. God’s command to love and care for the alien because “you were once aliens yourselves” (Ex. 22:20) is now expanded radically. The Israelites were to care for the alien because they shared a common origin. Now, we are to love and care for all others, in the ways that God asks, because we recognize a common origin in God.