“Love the Lord your God with all your heart… and love your neighbor as you love yourself” are the words of Jesus. Eugene made them his (and ours) by using the word “oblation” – our vocation is to give ourselves totally to God in love, and to the service of one another:
Charity for our neighbour is again an essential part of our spirit.
However, he adds a condition:
We practice it first amongst us by loving each other as brothers
If we cannot live in charity among ourselves, we have nothing to offer to the world, except a two-faced lie: “do what I tell you, but do not imitate what you see me doing in my personal and community life.”
“If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” I John 4:20.
Not necessarily an ‘easy’ read or reflection this morning. It calls me to look at myself, courageously and truthfully, without measuring, justifying or rationalizing. The words “in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do…” come to mind.
When I give myself to God, my oblation – that is not just a small part or a few pieces of myself – it is everything – from the fair skin to the open sores – and the wonder of that is that God loves all of me.
But oblation, as Frank wrote, means giving myself total to God in love and to the service of one another. It must be without choosing who will be that ‘one another’ – it can’t be just a select few. And my oblation cannot be a one-shot thing; it is not a matter of giving myself totally to God in love and to others one time and then I am good for life. It’s a daily thing or sometimes more often.
I am blessed to be a part of ‘communities’ – our Mazenodian family, the Church, my parish, my friends and those I work for and volunteer with. Before I sit down to dinner with them I might want to ‘wash the feet’ of my brothers and sisters.
“Tough love!”