Word of Life October 2010

"You shall love your neighbour as yourself" (Mt 22,39)

This Word can be found already in the Hebrew Scriptures. In replying to a question, Jesus gave his answer in line with the great tradition of the prophets and rabbis who had sought the unifying principle of the Torah, that is, God’s teaching in the Bible.

Rabbi Hillel once said: ‘What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour: that is the whole Torah, while the rest is the commentary.’

The Jewish teachers considered love of neighbour to be a consequence of loving God who created human beings in his image and likeness. So it is not possible to love God without loving the people he has made. This is the real motive for love of neighbour, and it is ‘a great and general principle of the Torah.’

Jesus repeated this principle and added that the command to love one’s neighbour is like the first and greatest commandment, namely, to love God with all one’s heart, mind and soul.

In affirming how similar the two commandments are, Jesus conclusively bound them together, as does the whole of Christian tradition. As the Apostle John states so clearly: ‘Those who do not love the brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen’

“You shall love your neighbour as yourself" (Mt 22,39)

As the entire Gospel shows, ‘our neighbour’ means every human being, man or woman, friend or enemy, to whom we owe respect, consideration and esteem. Love of neighbour is both universal and personal. It embraces all humanity and takes concrete shape in the person next to you.

But who can give us such a big heart? Who can stir up in us such kindness that we feel even those who are most unlike us, those most distant from us, as neighbours, as close, that we overcome our self-love and see our self in others?

It is a gift from God. It is, in fact, God’s own love that ‘has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit that has been given to us’.

Therefore, it is not ordinary love, not simple friendship, not just philanthropy, but that love which was poured out into our hearts at our baptism, the love which is the life of God himself, of the blessed Trinity, in which we can share.

So love is everything, but to live it well, we need to know its qualities which emerge from the Gospel and from Scripture in general. We feel that they can be summed up in a few fundamental aspects.

First of all, Jesus died for everyone, loving everyone, and this teaches us that true love should be given to everyone. It is unlike the simply human love we often have, which is limited in its range: our family, friends and people who live nearby...

The true love that Jesus wants does not permit discrimination. It does not distinguish between pleasant and unpleasant people, between the good-looking and the ugly, between old and young. It makes no difference for this love if someone is from my country or a foreigner, from my church or a different one, my religion or another. Everyone is loved by this love. And we must do the same: love everyone.

Next, true love is the first to love and does not wait to be loved, as is usually the case with human love: we love those who love us. Instead, true love takes the initiative, as the Father did by sending the Son to save us when we were still sinners and therefore not loving.

So: love everyone and be the first to love. Another quality: true love recognizes Jesus in every neighbour: ‘You did it to me’, Jesus will say to us at the final judgement. And this will apply to the good we do and also, unfortunately, to the bad we do.

True love loves friends and also enemies: it does good and prays for them.

Jesus also wants the love that he brought on earth to become mutual: one person loving the other and vice-versa, in order to reach unity. All these qualities of love help us to understand the Word of Life for this month and to live it better.

“You shall love your neighbour as yourself" (Mt 22,39)

Yes, true love loves others as itself. And this is to be taken literally. We must really see the other person as another self and do for the other what we would do for ourselves.

True love suffers with those who suffer, rejoices with those who rejoice, and carries the burdens of others. As Paul says, it knows how to make itself one with the person it loves. So it is not just a question of feelings or beautiful words, but of concrete facts.

People with other religious beliefs can also seek to do this by living the so-called ‘Golden Rule’ which can be found in all religions. It wants us to do to others what we would like others to do to us. Gandhi explains it in a very simple and effective way: ‘I cannot hurt you without hurting myself.’

This month should be an opportunity, then, to refocus on love for our neighbour, who has so many faces: the person next door, a classmate, a friend or a close relative.

But there are also the faces of the suffering humanity that television brings into our homes with pictures of war or natural disasters. Once they were unknown to us and thousands of miles away. Now they too have become our neighbours.

Love will suggest what we should do in each situation, and little by little it will expand our hearts to the measure of the heart of Jesus.

“You shall love your neighbour as yourself" (Mt 22,39) “Word of Life”, monthly publication of the Focolare Movement. Original text by: Chiara Lubich, October Graphic design by Anna Lollo in collaboration with Fr. Placido D’Omina (Sicily - Italy) This commentary on the Word of Life is translated in 96 languages, and it reaches millions of people throughout the world through press, radio, TV and internet – for more information visit This Powerpoint presentation is translated in various languagesAnna LolloPlacido D’Ominawww.focolare.org and is published on