Praise be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.
We continue our reflections on Franciscan spirituality today, talking about the soul of Franciscan spirituality, which is love or charity.
Today we're going to talk briefly about loving our neighbor, the divine atmosphere, maybe you could call it the divine ocean of grace, with grace which followers of Christ are called to live in, leads them to love what God loves.
So a faithful follower of Christ and of St. Francis can't help but love their neighbor.
You shall love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself, Jesus tells us in Mark 12 verses 30 and 31, so there's no way we can separate loving God from loving others, as the Apostle says, if anyone says I love God and hates his brother, he's a liar.
For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen, 1 John 4 verse 20.
Love one another as I have loved you, Jesus commands us in John 13 verse 34, which means love each other with that supernatural love, with that divine charity with which I've loved you.
We're to love each other because we're branches of the single vine who is Christ himself, you see that in John 15 verse 5, because the same sap as it were which is grace or charity, that same sap which comes from Jesus runs in our veins, it runs in our souls, or at least it should be running there.
St. John says, beloved, let us love one another for love is of God, if we love one another God abides in us and his love is perfected in us, 1 John 4 verses 7 and 12.
St. Francis in his prayer inspired by our Father says, and may we love our neighbors as ourselves by drawing them with all our whole strength to your love, by rejoicing in the good fortunes of others as well as our own, and by sympathizing with the misfortunes of others and by giving offense to no one, says the Seraphic Father.
Francis speaks of drawing our neighbors to God's love.
Blessed John Dunscotus seems to comment on this when he says, he says, with a single and a same act I direct my will towards God and I want that you also direct your will towards God, and in doing this I love you according to charity.
And so our neighbor isn't a second object of charity, but they're simply an accidental object, he says.
I love my neighbor with the goal of making them love God with me, so I don't love them for themselves but rather for the object for God that I want him or her to love, says Scotus.
So when he says that our neighbor is an accidental object of charity, he's not saying that it's a mistake that we love them, right?
He's making a philosophical statement.
In philosophy, the substance is the most important element of a thing, it's the subject that supports the accidents.
Accidents are secondary aspects of a substance.
So substance exists of itself, the accidents needs the support of the substance to exist.
For example, a dog is a substance, his size, shape, color, those things are all accidental, they're accidents.
So the first or substantial object of charity is God, who is love, secondarily or accidentally our neighbor is also an object of charity.
This is what we mean when we say we love our neighbor as ourselves for love of God.
Father Ciccarelli in his book on Franciscan spirituality here quotes Thomas Merton who echoes the thought of Scotus.
Merton says, the act of the will with which we love the Lord grabs our neighbor and pulls them towards God with the same impetus with which we give ourselves to God.
So if you want to bring those around you closer to God, how do you do that?
Well, have a deeper love of God for yourself.
That's how you'll help everyone around you, everyone in your life.
If you love God the more, that'll bring and draw everyone else around you closer to the Lord.
Love has this superhuman force to it because it's infused charity, it's divine charity.
God is the principle and the final object.
Our neighbor is only included in that main object which is God.
Scotus again says, this virtue of charity has God as its ultimate object.
Only in him does charity find its rest.
However, its proximate object by reflexive act can be some created thing, he says.
So our love for God can and should go together with a love for our neighbor, a love for creation, for the things around us too.
If we're loving them in the right way, then we'll love all those things because of our love for God.
So our love for creatures won't exclude the greatest of loves which is God itself.
It should never exclude him.
I remember someone who was not very religious once telling me, not too many, well many years ago I guess it was, he said, God only gave us one commandment, sometimes you'll hear this, right?
Love your neighbor.
That's the only commandment he gave us.
I thought for a second and I said, well he also said that we're supposed to love him, right?
We're supposed to love him first, right?
And then love our neighbor.
I don't think, I don't remember him actually responding to me when I said that.
I think he was probably very angry and wanted to punch me but he was being kind and not acting on his anger.
In his first rule, St. Francis says to his brothers that everyone should love and nourish his brother as a mother loves and nourishes her son according to the means God gives them.
So in his concreteness, Francis couldn't find a better example of love that we should have towards others than the love of a mother towards her son.
The tender love of a mother which is normally the purest, most disinterested and generous love that we know, at least those who come from good families.
St. Francis' own charity towards his neighbor was delicate, it was spontaneous, it was simple and sincere and it came from his passionate love for Christ.
He once lovingly washed the sores of a leper who blasphemed God whom no one else was able to put up with.
And Francis' patience and kindness and charity actually converted that man.
The companions of St. Francis hadn't managed to succeed in ministering to that man because they didn't love as much as Francis did.
The miracle of that conversion which God worked through Francis revealed his sanctity, yes, but above all it revealed his great love for God and his great love for those who are in misery as well.
Even when Our Lord and Our Lady appeared to him, appeared to St. Francis at the Portiuncula and invited him to ask whatever grace he wanted, Francis didn't ask anything for himself.
He asked for the spiritual good of his neighbor, for a spiritual gift, the gift that we know as the porchunkula indulgence.
His love had helped him move beyond being stuck on himself and thinking only of himself.
Francis' thoughts were of God and also of how he could help his neighbor.
One of his exhortations was this, he says, love very much the love of the one who has loved us so much.
Love very much the love of the one who has loved us so much.
And in the prayer of St. Francis that we pray sometimes after Mass, we pray, may the power of your love, O Lord, fiery and sweet as honey, wean my heart from everything under heaven so that I may die for love of your love.
You who are so good as to die for love of my love.
Phrases and prayers like these help us to see the ardent love that the Seraphic Father had for God and for others too, a love which led him to call everyone and everything brothers and sisters.
He was able to see God in everyone and everything and love God in everyone and in everything as well.
And it's the love of Christ which transformed him so much that at Mount Laverna when he received the stigmata, he asked not only to experience the sufferings of Christ, but there he also asked to feel in his heart that ardent charity which drove the Son of God to sustain such pains and sufferings for us sinners.
So let's ask Our Lady for the grace today to truly begin to love those around us for the love of God and with God's love in our hearts as well.
Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.
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Ave Maria.