Living in Love with God

Sunday’s Readings

Homily for the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Cycle C)
Theme: Love God, Love Neighbor

The readings for this 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time offer us a message that is both beautifully simple and deeply challenging: Love God, and love your neighbor. Jesus tells us that these two commandments are the heart of the law, and everything else flows from them. But as we all know, that’s easier said than done.

Loving God

Let’s begin with the first part: loving God.

For many, faith is often experienced more like a list of rules than a relationship. We hear in our first reading from Deuteronomy: “Because you will obey the voice of the Lord…keeping the commandments and statutes.” (Dt 30:10ab) It’s true that obedience matters. But the danger is that we turn religion into nothing more than a moral code or checklist. In our time, politics or ideologies have replaced religion as the lens through which people view the world. And yet, these things do not fill the heart.

Deuteronomy calls us back: “Return to the Lord, your God, with your whole heart and your whole being.” (Dt 30:10cd) This is the essence of love—a full return, a wholehearted response.

And then it offers us this beautiful reassurance: “The Word is something very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart.” (Dt 30:14) In other words, God is not far away. He is not hidden. He is already near, already speaking within us.

St. John Vianney once said:
“Our only occupation here on earth is that of loving God—that is, to start doing what we will be doing for eternity… Our happiness consists in loving God; it can consist in nothing else.”

That’s worth repeating: our happiness consists in loving God.

And yet, so many people today are deeply unhappy. We live in a world that tells us to chase pleasure, comfort, success—whatever makes you “happy.” But has it worked? Rates of anxiety, loneliness, and despair are higher than ever. We’ve been given permission to do whatever we want, but many still feel lost. The missing piece is not more freedom—but more love of God.

Forming Disciples: Word, Sacrament, Service

Here in Our Lady of Fall River Catholic Community, our mission is clear: Forming Disciples of Jesus Christ through Word, Sacrament, and Service. These are the tools the Church gives us to help us love God more fully.

• Through the Word: Prayer, reading the Scripture, Adoration, the Rosary, spiritual direction, formation opporutnities such as small groups are not just spiritual “extras”—they are ways of drawing close to the One who already dwells in our hearts.
• Through the Sacraments: Especially the Eucharist and Reconciliation. We are blessed in this community with daily Mass 7 days a week, many near by parishes with morning masses, our community with the 12N and 5:30 masses, and about 5 hours of Confession times available. These are not obligations—they are invitations to love.

Loving Neighbor: The Fruit of Loving God

Now we move to the second part of the commandment: loving our neighbor.

In the Gospel, the scholar of the law asks Jesus: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Pope Leo said in one of his first Wednesday audiences that this question reveals a kind of entitlement—like eternal life is something we’re owed. But in reality, eternal life is the perfection of a loving relationship with God. It’s not earned. It’s received. It is a state of perfect love with God.

St. John writes: “If God loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (1 John 4:11)

Then comes the deeper question: “Who is my neighbor?”

Again, Pope Leo reminds us: the word neighbor means “the one who is near.” Think about that. Not just the one we like, or the one who agrees with us, but the one who is near. The one in front of us.

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in their midst.” God is not just present in church—He is present in our relationships: in friendship, in family, in those who suffer, in those who challenge us. Every human being is made in the image and likeness of God. Every neighbor is a dwelling place of the Lord.

Then we come to that famous story: the priest and the Levite pass by the wounded man on the road.

The Holy Father offers a strong reflection on this: “Life is made up of many encounters, and in these encounters, we emerge for what we are.” The priest and the Levite lived and served in the Temple—but their worship did not translate into compassion.

And here is the challenge: sometimes we are that priest or that Levite. We go to church, we check the boxes, but our hearts may still be closed. If we see ourselves in them today, it’s not a moment for shame—it’s a moment of grace. The Lord says to us, “Return to the Lord, your God, with your whole heart and your whole being.”

Let us not condemn ourselves, but rather renew our commitment:

• A greater openness to the Word, recognizing that God is already speaking in our hearts.
• A deeper devotion to the Sacraments, especially Reconciliation and the Eucharist.
• And a renewed desire to serve Christ in the one who is near—in our neighbor.

Conclusion

So today, Jesus asks us in the Liturgy: Do you love God? Do you love your neighbor?

This love is not burdensome. It is rather the path to joy. It is the way to eternal life. In loving God and loving others, we begin to live the life of heaven, right here and now.

Let us ask for the grace to return to the Lord with all our heart, and to meet Him anew—in prayer, in the sacraments, and in one another.