Wanting to love God with heart, soul, mind and body is the next best thing to actually doing it.
Today's reading of Francis' words reminds us of the 1st letter of John (the 'beloved' disciple) because it has only one theme: love. There is a tradition that a disciple of John once complained to him that all he talked about was love in his teachings. He asked him why he taught only about love. He stated simply, "If you love, you don't need to know or do anything else."
When Jesus was asked by a Jewish scribe (student of the law of Moses) which was first in God's commandments He answered, "Love God with all of your heart, all of Your mind, all of Your body and all of Your soul. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as you love yourself." He added that "all of the teachings of Moses (the law) and the prophet's are contained in these two commands."
Jesus said, "If you love Me You will do as I have instructed you." Francis, the faithful friend and disciple of Jesus, did do as He instructed - wholeheartedly. Francis turned his back on his own will and focused on fulfilling the will of his heavenly Father.
Thus Francis prayed . . . 'Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven' . . . "so that we may love You with all our heart by always keeping You in mind; with all our soul by always longing for You with all our mind by directing all our intentions to You and seeking Your glory in everything, and with all our strength by exerting all the forces and faculties of soul and body in Your loving service and IN NOTHING ELSE . . . May we love our neighbors as ourselves, by getting them all so far as we can to love You, by being as glad at the good fortune of others as of our own, while feeling for their misfortune, and giving no offense to anybody." (My uppercase and bold-type.)
Francis prays that God's will is done in our lives so that we can love Him with all of our hearts . He says we do so when we always keep Him in mind - at the forefront of our thoughts. We think the most about those things that are most important or precious to us. Jesus said, 'Where a man's treasure is, that is where his heart will be.' The heart is the seat of all affections and who deserves our love and affections more than our heavenly Father who is so good and blesses us always?!
Francis prays that we might love God with all of our soul by always longing for Him. Francis prayed to be able to always think of God but here he prays that he might also always long for Him, to be with Him. Even though God is with us that doesn't mean that we are with Him. "Have I been with you so long and still you don't know me?" Jesus asked at the Last Supper. Thinking of God and longing for Him are two ways that we can 'be' with Him.
Francis prays that God will help us to love Him with all of our mind. He states that this takes place when we 'direct all of our intentions towards You . . . seeking Your glory in all we do.' When we 'intend' something this means we will something to happen. When we direct all of our intentions to God it means that we want His input on all we want to do. We care about what God wants and so focus on fulfilling His will rather than our own. All we do and say is therefore done to please God and to bring glory to Him. So, loving God with our minds means that we are constantly trying to know God's will, are always wanting to do only what He wants and acting solely with the desire that God alone be honored and glorified.
Francis then prays that we would be able to love God with all of 'our strength'. There is the strength that comes from the body - physical strength - and, there is also the strength that comes from the will - mental/spiritual determination. Francis meant that ALL the powers and skills (abilities) that we have should be directed to serving God ALONE.
Francis prays that we might serve God. We can serve Him by praying, making sacrifices and offering thanks - but all of these means of serving are 'spiritual' and the 'work' that is accomplished is unseen. Those forms of service should all be done but there is other work that must be done as well.
St. James said, "You have faith, and that is good, but faith without works is dead." St. John said, "If you see your brother in need and do not respond to that need then you have denied the faith." Francis says here that loving God must take the form of loving our brother as ourselves.
I read that Mother Theresa of Calcutta was commended by a non-religious person for all the good work she did for the poor (as a social activist). Mother Theresa immediately responded, 'If my Lord Jesus told me to do something else I would immediately stop working with the poor. You must understand that it is Jesus I serve. Jesus is my Lord and I do what He tells me to do." Thus we see that, like Francis, Mother Theresa was focused on serving God in whatever way God indicated that it pleased Him to be served. Jesus said, "When you did it (a good deed) to the lowest of my children, you did it to Me." It does please God when we take care of our poor brothers and sisters.
However, serving our brothers as Jesus (and Francis) did should not be limited to meeting the needs of their bodies. "Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God," Jesus said. All temporal and physical things must take second place to those things that are eternal and spiritual. We all know that we should provide the basic necessities of life - food, clothes, etc - to the needy. However, Francis who loved the poor so much, did not mention doing any of these things in his prayer above. (And yet, we know that Francis would take the little he had - which was only the clothes on his back or the food he had begged for that day - and give it to any poor person who asked - choosing to go without the basic necessities of life himself!)
Francis did not mention meeting the needs of the poor because doing so was a given for him. Rather, he chose to focus in this prayer on the most pressing need of everyone around him - their spiritual need - a need that social (and sometimes religious) activists neglect.
Only after the need of each person for the love of God is met does he focus on the second need that mankind has: God's love coming through His children - us. Francis knew that to love our brother as we love ourselves means to celebrate their successes and blessings. He also knew that we should feel their pain and sorrow when things are hard for them. When we love others like this then they know that we are 'with them' in it and 'feel for them'. "Because of your love . . . all men will know that you are My disciples", Jesus said. This means that when we love others we are showing them God's love. After all, we follow Jesus' example of being a servant to all men and trying to do good to them. "I came not to be served but to serve and give My life a ransom for many," Jesus said. St. Paul said about Jesus, "He went about everywhere doing good to all men."
To recap, Francis talks about three ways of loving our neighbor. First, we should love them by seeking to get them to know and love God. Secondly, we empathize with them showing thereby how deeply we care about them and appreciate them. Finally, we love our neighbor by trying to not do them harm! If we can't do the first two we should at least do the third! I admit that I struggle every day to not upset, hurt or offend anyone in what I do and say because I can be so insensitive at times! I hope you all have forgiven me my many failings!
Prayer: Father in heaven help me! You are love and everything You do for us arises out of Your love. You call me to experience Your love and then share it with others. Jesus, You said that I should love God with my heart, soul, mind and body. Your servant Francis said I should do this by keeping You in mind, longing for You with all of my heart, directing all of my intentions toward You and finally putting all the strength of my body and soul behind the effort to serve You. Help me to love You Lord. Also, help me to love every one of Your children by truly feeling their pain and sorrow and celebrating their successes. Help me serve You in them and reveal to them, by my actions, the depths of Your love for them. Help me God for I know that 'we can do all things through Christ who gives us strength.' Amen.
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