Today a Scribe approached Jesus and asked Him: “What is the first of all the commandments?” Naturally, Jesus replied what He had learned as a small child: “The Lord our God is Lord alone” and we are to “love the Lord our God with our whole heart, soul, and mind.”  Jesus goes on to say, “The second is this:  You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”

For most of us, these words were etched on our minds and hearts at a very young age.  Hopefully, this continues to be true today. However, these words are so very familiar to us that we may not even “hear” them!  In essence, Jesus asks only two things of us: to love God with all our hearts and to love our neighbour as ourselves.  Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

The challenge in this statement may be our ability to love ourselves as well as we love our neighbour. Often we find it easier to love and accept another person as they are,  but  struggle to love ourselves as we are.   It often becomes automatic to criticize ourselves. What do we criticise: looks, choices, abilities, intelligence, or something else?

Today may we examine the many ways  we  strive to love others, then examine the ways we love ourselves.  Are we as loving and understanding with ourselves as we are with others?  

May we today try to be more forgiving to ourselves, and it that way we may  we develop a loving attitude towards those we meet  and truly  feel the Love of the Lord. 

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