Loving God with all one's heart, mind, soul and strength

Just last week in Friday’s Mass reading we saw Jesus reminding the scribe about the first of all the commandments, which is to love God with all our heart, our soul, mind and strength.  Mark’s gospel differs slightly from Matthew’s in this. But this has not changed, and will not change as a primary commandment for all of us.  Everything else flows from this, and it is when we get this right, that we will see life in a very different light than how a purely secular eye sees life.  The problem with our eyes, I believe, is that we have been influenced very much with a worldly, secular and utilitarian world, which puts the self much more in front of the God who we should be loving first.

How does the world love?  It’s not that difficult to give a general definition.  The world often loves only when it is assured of some tangible and selfish gain or return.  Seldom would it be the first to reach out in an overture of goodness and love, with little thought of getting some assurance that this would not be a wasted venture.  Many couples that ‘love’ one another with this mind enter into marriages with an idea that they are ‘getting’ something from their spouse in marriage rather than being one who is going to give and provide from the heart.  This often shows up much later in the marriage when the ‘honeymoon’ period is over, and real life needs to be lived.

Having said this, is it an easy task to love God and put him first in everything that we do?  If this is indeed the panacea for all of our problems and woes, why is this difficult to achieve and sustain?  Are only a few graced with the ability to be constantly mindful of this?  If so, who are they?  Monks?  Nuns?  Priests?  Bishops?  How could this be?  In a lot of honest writing and reflection, I have come across hoards of religious who have themselves expressed how frustrating and difficult it is to love God so ardently and so wholeheartedly.  What are we to make out of this?  If religious find it hard, how much more would the laity I am sure.

I do not find it easy myself.  I certainly do not find it easy to do so in my current state of being shunted in a hospital room, where I hardly get out to see the sun, and on chemo reaction days, find my insides wanting to see the outside.  I remember saying to myself in the midst of my retching episode last week – “God, can I really praise you and thank you for your goodness even in all this agony?” Sitting on a chair in a hospital room with a barf bag may not seem to be a time for praising God.  But isn’t the first commandment one that we should be loving God with ALL of our heart, mind, soul and strength, even when we don’t ‘feel’ like it, and when we are puking our guts out into a bag?  What does it mean then?  I think it means that God wants and appreciates all our moments of our days when we are aware of his presence in our lives, even when things are not going well, not seen to be pleasant and when life is tough. 

Liturgically, this pans out very correctly.  Each Sunday, the thousands and millions that take the effort to go to Church certainly do not ‘feel’ like praising and loving God at the same time.  Some may be suffering, some may have had a terrible quarrel with the spouse or a family fight the day before, some may even have doubts about why they are going there in the first place.  Some may disagree with the music, have negative thoughts about the preaching delivered, and perhaps only a small minority are able to really attune themselves with the actions and words of the liturgy.  But what is important to God is that there is a unified concerted effort of the Church (which is the Body of Christ) to make an active effort of worship that tries to honour that first commandment. 

But the question remains – why should we love God with all our hearts, mind, soul and strength?  Because God loved us first and has deemed to show this to us not just in nature, but also in the amazing act of the incarnation which displays his mercy.  All that remains for us is to respond to this with our daily acts of responsive love and awareness.  With lots to distract us, this does become a challenge, but not an insurmountable one. 

In his scholastic theology, St Thomas Aquinas wrote much on the notion of grace, and categorizes grace into prevenient, consequent, operative and cooperative grace, to name a few.  It is cooperative grace that many of us don’t think much of or place much emphasis on in our spiritual lives.  Cooperative grace is the desire of God to elicit our human cooperation to his outward reach of his primary grace to us.  In other words, in cooperative grace, God is waiting for our response and respects our free will before he acts.  It is not a quid-pro-quo notion of grace, but rather a display of respect and utter freedom. 

Don’t we do this with our own children?  Much of the important things in life we may impose on them without consultation, but in other things, when we want to show them our awareness of their maturity of thought and being, we seek their cooperation and responses too.  This then, is the same notion brought to a divine level.

This Sunday was the celebration of Laetare Sunday, which means Rejoice Sunday, taking the name from the opening words of the Mass’ Introit, calling Jerusalem to ‘rejoice’ as the sorrow she has experienced will encounter consolation.  It marks the mid-point of our Lenten journey thus far, and the visible mood in Church is lifted with the donning of Rose Vestments and that flowers are permitted to be adorn the altar this day.  This should help those who really don’t ‘feel’ like rejoicing, to cast aside their feelings and join the universal church in her act of worship as a body.  Let this be our ‘cooperation’ to God’s offer of unmerited and underserved love and begin to love God with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength.  

Even if we have to approach him with our barf bag in hand.