Tag: Love God and love your neighbor

Living and experiencing faith: it really is about love

April 30, 2025
three candles
Trinity candles

I grew up in pews every Sunday, four years in parochial school. I believed in God, believed in having a relationship with God, felt a deep, meaningful connection to liturgical ritual (I was the type of child who would notice how much the sanctuary candles had burned down each week and would notice when the shortened candles would be replaced with new candles)….. I later left the pews in my mid-twenties, in part because I couldn’t intellectually accept everything in the Nicene Creed (specifically, the parts that I would later call “biologically implausibilities” – a virgin birth, the ascension….).

Later, a profound reconversion brought me back to the pews (I tell that story here ). It was the type of experience that makes this explanation palpable:

“The Greek Fathers liken man’s encounter with God to the experience of someone walking over the mountains in the mist: he takes a step forward and suddenly finds that he is on the edge of a precipice, with no sold ground beneath his foot but only a bottomless abyss.” Quote: The Orthodox Way (Revised Edition, page 13), Bishop Kallistos Ware

In my reconversion experience and in the time that followed, I deeply experienced that God loves me. I found tremendous value in reading Teresa of Avila’s autobiography and the writings of John of the Cross who “schematized the steps of mystical ascent—a self-communion that in quietude leads the individual from the inharmonious distractions of the world to the sublime peace of reunion between the soul and God.”

Experiencing that God loves us is life-changing. I came to recognize that “we can’t think our way to God.”

Wondering what faith is meant to be about? Whether your faith is on track? Wondering how to engage more deeply in faith?

Love really is the measure what faith is all about. Matthew 22: 34-40: “The greatest commandments are…love the Lord your God….and….love your neighbor as you love yourself.”

Having a loving interactive prayer relationship with God is absolutely part of what makes faith meaningful. An active prayer life is what animates an active faith. “There can be no faith without prayer” and “prayer is the respiration of faith” are quotes I’ve come across that make sense.

In my experience, an interactive prayer life is what subsequently animates faith made visible via “love the Lord your God…and…love your neighbor.”

Wondering about how to have an active prayer life?

The apostles asked, “Lord, teach us to pray.” Most of us aren’t born knowing how to pray. Thus, the apostle’s question resulted in them being given The Lord’s Prayer.

Rather than prayer being an activity, prayer is a relationship. There’s a faith song with a line “There’s a hunger in our hearts….” Yes, we do live with a hunger. A longing for a relationship with the divine.

There’s an explanation about prayer being a relationship that may be attributed to Fr. Mike Schmidt (i.e., “Bible in a year” podcast). The explanation goes something like this: Prayer is a two-way communication, like a phone call. You wouldn’t call someone, tell them something, then hang up without giving the other person an opportunity to respond. Prayer should be the same way. When we pray, it should be a two-way communication in which we communicate to God and allow God to be tangibly present to us in response.

So, how can we pray? Really, this question asks “how can we have a relationship with God?” Ultimately, there are as many ways to pray are there are people. A few examples of approaches to prayer:

  • Lectio Divina: Reflectfully reading and praying upon scripture and additional faith reading.
  • Contemplative prayer: simply being quiet in God’s presence. For more about this style of “Be still and know that I am God” prayer, check out the Contemplative Outreach network.
  • Attending church. Church services are a form of communal prayer.
  • Rote prayers (check out examples here of the prayers recited at church).

Beyond prayer – a place where we experience loving God and being loved by God – there is then loving our neighbor. For those of us who are “saints in training” rather than “saints already,” loving our neighbor is learned rather than an auto-pilot activity.

There are endless ways to love the people in our lives. There’s a phrase that may have come from Presbyterians: “Love your neighbor means everybody.” We don’t get to pick and choose who we are to love. We are to love everybody. For many of us, that’s a tall order.

How do we “love everybody?” If you’re like me, you’re not there yet. For starters, loving everybody means we can’t hate anybody. We need to become ever conscious of “how am I going to treat everyone I encounter with love and dignity?” How we achieve that varies depending on the context. “Whatsoever you do for the least of my fellows” – we take care of people who need our assistance. We treat everyone with dignity. We stand tall in being good to the people in our daily lives. There are endless ways to be good to everybody we encounter. For most of us, there are plenty of ways to continually improve at this – a good way to focus on growing in faithfulness.

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist (and is a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). Blogging is sustainable via blog readership (i.e. readers/subscribers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you subscribe to follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them and invite them to subscribe (thank you!).

How-to list: steps to living our faith as love

June 24, 2024
Stairs, moss

The purpose of being a person of faith is ultimately about “Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Corinthians 16:14).

Christ was asked, “Which of the commandments is greatest?” He responded, ““Love God and love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:34-40).

So, how do we live our lives as our faith calls us to? Several steps – if applied – move us forward in love (kudos for these steps you already put into practice!):

  • Love God. God is love. We spend time with the people we love; thus, loving God requires spending time with God in prayer (note: prayer isn’t just a one-way conversation of us talking to God. Prayer is a relationship. Relationships go both ways – in addition to communicating to God, allow God to be present in prayer, be attentive to God’s loving presence.). Twenty minutes in daily prayer is feasible. Regular prayer transforms us, increases both our faith and how our faith unfolds in our lives!
  • Loving God requires loving God’s children. This is both a spiritual truth and applies our faith toward the greater social good (this spiritual truth is spoken of in 1 John 4:20). Everyone is a child of God – no exceptions. Even the people we don’t like are beloved children of God (that’s hard!). It can be easy to cultivate a loving relationship with God (the “faith is exclusively a relationship between me and God” syndrome) – it’s harder to apply our faith to learning to love any people we’d rather avoid. However, learning to love people we’d rather avoid (or even hate!) forces us to grow into becoming better people – faith in action! The world becomes a better place as a result.
  • Apply generosity of spirit throughout each day. As the saying goes, “everyone loves a cheerful giver.” Through this principle, we become better people and contribute positively to our communities and the individuals within our communities.
  • Go the extra mile to be a caring person when interacting with people. Be the one to help build community, to be a force for good. Result: people feel cared for!
  • Get involved in relieving the needs in your community. Volunteer where needed, donate to charity. We can all be involved in making our community a better place.
  • Make time for people when they need you. Be present when someone is vulnerable. This is sometimes easy when it’s someone we care about it, when the topic-at-hand is an easy one, and we can easily make time. Sometimes, though, being present when someone feels vulnerable is hard. Work at it, people need you. It’s a good, important way to support people.
  • Be the one to forgive, even when it’s hard. This is the right thing to do, it heals relationships. Sometimes, we need to be the bigger person (even when we don’t want to!).
  • Find something good in everyone. Nearly everyone – even the people who are difficult – have positive traits. Compliment people’s strengths.
  • In marriages, apply the “60/40 rule.” If both spouses spend 60% of their marital effort thinking about meeting the other spouse’s needs (rather than focusing on “what do I want out of this marriage”), the marriage will go well. A great strategy!
  • Build people up. Family, friends, co-workers.
  • Give children and pets – everyone who is vulnerable (sick folks, marginalized individuals, etc. – your undivided attention. When we are good to people who can’t do anything for us – we’re living as well as we ought to.
  • Commit random acts of kindness. The more, the better.
  • Cultivate empathy.
  • Allow God to clean up your character flaws. Often time, our flaws get reduced better with God’s help. Our imperfections don’t help anybody!

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages (and a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them (thank you!). Also, your support ($$) to help sustain this blog is welcome.

Loving God (Reflection, part two: Matthew 22:34-40)

January 6, 2024

I frequently quote Matthew 22: 34-40: “The greatest commandments are…love the Lord your God….and….love your neighbor as you love yourself.” In a recent post, I focused on the aspect of loving one’s neighbors (“love your neighbor means loving everybody”).

As mentioned in that recent blog post, there’s a lot that goes into living each aspect of love God, love your neighbor, love yourself.

For the aspect of loving God, loving God necessitates investing time and effort into a continuing relationship with God.

A crucial aspect of faith gets to “the heart” of a loving relationship with God: God is love, God loves us, and God wants to have a relationship with us. It is God’s very nature to love. Given that it is God’s inherent nature to love, the Catholic Catechism speaks to God’s nature needing to be Trinitarian – Father, Son, Holy Ghost – because God needed someone to love before God had humans to love; the three aspects of the Trinity could love each other – each aspect of itself – until we humans came along….and, of course, the Trinity continues loving each aspect of itself. Paragraph 221 of the Catechism reads: “God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange.”).

Us loving God in response to God’s love for us requires intentionality on our part. A relationship with God happens in prayer. There can be no faith without prayer (I don’t recall where I first heard this. It’s true!). Westerners live in an activity-focused society; sitting in communal presence with God (prayer!) – as well as with the people in our lives – requires the willingness to pause contemplatively. Pausing contemplatively can be uncomfortable for those unfamiliar with the practice – forcing presence with inner experience that is sometimes avoided. The fruit of being present with God can bring us to the joy of loving God and experiencing being loved by God.

I have heard prayer compared to a phone call. We wouldn’t phone someone and say, “I’m calling to tell you about X.  Here’s what I have to say,”  then hang up, ending the call.  It’s the same way with prayer.  Too often, prayer is thought to be one way – us talking to God.  Remember to listen (“resting in God’s presence”). Prayer is a two-way communication – us communicating to God and – for many of us – allowing God to be present with us (a few saints sense direct verbal communication!).   Be still and know that I am God (Psalm 46:10).

Loving God is one of the aspects of how we are meant to live. Living in right relationship with God – loving God – turns out to be its’ own reward, bring joy to both God and to ourselves. 

Loving God also requires loving our neighbor.  Because each of us is a child of God, loving God inherently requires loving God’s children.  “If someone says, ‘I love God,; and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen (1 John 4:20).”  To whatever degree we live “love all of God’s children,” we contribute to making this world a better place.

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages (and a “Content Creator/Individual” member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog post, please share it with them (thank you!). You can also support this blog by clicking here when you are going to shop on Amazon (that lands A Parish Catechist a commission on Amazon sales).

Ponderings on self-revealing love

September 2, 2023

Yikes.

I am reading David G. Benner’s book, Opening to God, Lectio Divina and Life as Prayer. Early in the book, he writes “Genuine prayer always begins in the heart and is offered by act of opening our self as we turn toward God in faith” (page 18). “Growth in prayer is learning to open more and more of our selves to God” (page 19). Benner also goes on to write on the following page, “….God is ever reaching out in self-revealing love….”

Yikes…..the passage “God is ever reaching out in self-revealing love” hit me like a ton if bricks. In the context of prayer, I began experiencing God’s love via prayer in October, 2016 [I tell of how I “heard the words” growing up that “Jesus loves us,” but I heard it much like children in the Charlie Brown movies heard their teacher’s voice as “wah…wah…wah” – words that we don’t actually take in. It wasn’t until October, 2016 that I actually experienced – in prayer – that God loves me. Experiencing that God loves us sure gets a person’s attention!]. Yet, reading Benner’s passage last night about “self-revealing love” got my attention in quite another way.

We are meant to have rich relationships with both God and each other. Christ indicated that the greatest commandments are to “Love God and love your neighbor” ((Matthew 22:36-40)….. Add to that “self-revealing love” – insight toward a solution for a particular and vexing challenge. Many first-world countries are experiencing an “epidemic of loneliness” (see the U.S. Surgeon General’s 2023 report on the “Epidemic of Loneliness“). I myself have spent much of my life feeling varying degrees of social isolation – the awkward introvert, feeling like the ignored, boring, and lonely social wallflower who senses a wall between me and the world. Why waste time making this self-revelation? Because we’ve all got room to grow and because showing our own experience is part of the poetry of sharing the human experience…..

Related to the topic of social isolation, the idea of “self-revealing love” isn’t just suppose to be God’s self-revelations to us. As we are to “love God and love our neighbor,” how many of us engage in self-revealing love with one another? Frankly, I don’t do that well – if at all. When I read Benner’s passage about God’s self-revealing love to us in prayer, I moved from “God provides us with self-revealing love” to the emotional weight of thinking – by extension – “We humans should self-revealing as part of ‘love one another.’ I don’t do that. I don’t self-reveal nearly enough.” No wonder I’m boring and lonely. I come across as a blank slate in which people aren’t able to see who lives under my skin. I then immediately and easily thought of people who engage in self-revealing love in their social and family interactions. We all want to be around those people!

A public example of a self-revealing individual – who self-reveals as an act of love – is the priest and popular author Henri Nouwen. Nouwen was willing to self-disclose in his popular books that he spent years struggling with self-doubt and conflictedness about his sexuality. What a “self-revealing love” gift to share with readers (I – as a reader – was moved when I read that. “Wow! We don’t often hear priests talk about their inner experience regarding their sexuality….”). This wasn’t just self-revelation: it was self-revelation in a vulnerable sort of way that helps lay readers see their own humanity in a respected faith leader. It seems to me that this was one of the aspects of lovingness that makes Nouwen’s writings so well read (there’s a quote on the Henri Nouwen Society website from a reader who mentions Nouwen’s willingness to live vulnerably).

Self-revelations in our social interactions add a level of depth to our relationships with one another and can – should – be part of how we love. Of course, there are appropriate parameters – what time we brush our teeth, etc. can border on the ridiculous; I’m referring to self-disclosing those aspects of ourselves that make us human. Some of the people I know who are most appreciated in their social circles are people who both love the people around them and make themselves transparent with gusto. For those of us either don’t self-disclose or love (or both) with gusto, there’s a challenge in learning how to do so! One prayer that is consistently useful and that could help with this topic is one that allows God to turn me into a better human (it’s a form of surrender): “God turn me into the person you want me to be. Help! You’re going to change me better than I can!”

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages. If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog post, please share it with them so they can subscribe (thank you!).