One Minute Reflection – 10 September – “And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them..” … Luke 6:31

One Minute Reflection – 10 September – “Month of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary ” – Thursday of the Twenty Third week in Ordinary Time, Readings: 1 Corinthians 8:1b-7, 11-13, Psalms 139:1-3, 13-14, 23-24, Luke 6:27-38

“And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them..” … Luke 6:31

REFLECTION – “Whoever loves me, says the Lord, will keep my commandments” and, “this is my commandment: that you love one another” (cf. Jn 14:15.23; 15:12). Thus whoever does not love their neighbour fails to keep the commandment and so cannot love the Lord. (…)

If “love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rm 13:10), anyone who is full of rancour towards a neighbour, laying traps for the neighbour, cursing and exults in their fall, must surely be a transgressor deserving eternal punishment. If “he who speaks evil of his brother and judges him, speaks evil of the law and judges the law” (Jas 4:11) and the law of Christ is love, surely someone who speaks evil of Christ’s love, falls away from it and is the cause of his own perdition.

Do not listen gleefully to gossip at your neighbour’s expense, nor chatter to a person who likes finding fault. Otherwise you will fall away from divine love and find yourself cut off from eternal life. (…) Silence the person who utters slander in your hearing. Otherwise you sin twice over: – first you accustom yourself to a deadly passion and, second, you fail to prevent this gossip against your neighbour. (…)

St Paul says that if we have all the gifts of the Spirit but do not have love, we are no further forward (cf. 1 Cor 13:2). How assiduous, then, we ought to be in our efforts to acquire this love!” … St Maximus the Confessor (c 580–662) Abbot Theologian – First Century on Love, nos. 16, 56-58, 60, 54

PRAYER – Almighty Lord and God, protect us by Your power and love throughout this day, even as You have enabled us, in Your love to begin it. Do not let us turn aside to any sin but let our every thought, word and deed be done in love for You and Your creatures, our neighbour. Teach us to love as You have loved us and may our Sorrowful and Holy Mother, show us the way. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Who loved us to the end, with the Holy Spiriti, God now and for all eternity, amen.