Неделя девятнадцатая по Пятидесятнице

(2 Cor. 11:31–12:9; Luke 6:31–36) The root, primordial commandment is love. A small word, but expresses an all-encompassing matter. It is easy to say - love, but it is not easy to achieve the proper amount of love. It is not entirely clear how to achieve this; That’s why the Savior surrounds this commandment with other explanatory rules: “love... as yourself” (Matthew 19:19); and “whatever you want people to do to you, do so to them” (Luke 6:31). Here the measure of love is indicated, one might say, immeasurable; for is there a measure of self-love and is there any good that someone would not wish for himself from others? Meanwhile, however, this requirement is not unenforceable. The whole point is to enter into perfect sympathy with others so that you can completely transfer their feelings onto yourself, feel the way they feel. When this happens, there is no point in indicating what should be done for others in what case: the heart itself will indicate. Just take care to maintain sympathy, otherwise egoism will immediately come up and bring you back to itself and enclose you within itself. Then you won’t lift a finger for the other one and you won’t even look at him, even if he dies. When the Lord said: “Love your neighbor... as himself,” then he wanted him to become in us instead of us, i.e. in our hearts, neighbor. If our “I” remains there as before, then don’t expect any good. You might be interested in: