Praise be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.
The Gospel today teaches us about true love of neighbor, and the saints, each and every one of them, put this teaching of our Lord into practice.
Also remind us that Christian charity is very concrete.
It means loving our neighbor, loving him specifically in our thoughts, and in our words, and in our actions as well.
And in each one of these areas, thoughts, words, and actions, it has to be concrete and specific.
The saints remind us that in our thoughts about our neighbor, we must, for example, always avoid rashly judging them.
It's so easy to do, but so contrary to charity to rashly judge our neighbor.
To come to conclusions about our neighbor without having sufficient evidence, and that is most of the time exactly the case for us.
We don't know enough, and yet we judge for whatever selfish reason we do that.
So it means avoiding rash judgments about our neighbor.
It means also in our thoughts, not rejoicing in our neighbor's misfortune, for example.
This isn't a complete list, but just a few examples that the saints give us.
When we think about our neighbor, we should never rejoice in any evil that happens to him.
We should not wish evil upon our neighbor, not even in our thoughts.
Quite the contrary, quite the contrary.
We should wish all good upon our neighbor in our thought.
We should wish for our neighbor what God himself wishes for our neighbor, God who is all merciful and all loving.
That's one of the reasons why Jonah was so reluctant to go to Nineveh, because he feared that if he preached repentance, they might repent, and they might be forgiven.
And he didn't want to do that.
So charity in thoughts, charity in our words.
There's, again, many examples we could give, but avoiding the following which commonly happen, avoiding detraction, so revealing our neighbor's faults.
What is the purpose of that?
If there is no purpose, why do it?
Why detract our neighbor?
Why ridicule our neighbor?
It's so easy to make fun of our neighbors.
Why do it?
Is that charity?
Avoiding contention, so becoming stubbornly attached to our own opinions and willing to fight and lose friendships just to hold on to our stubborn opinions.
It feels so great, but it's so contrary to charity.
Avoiding looking for gossip, engaging in gossip, practicing meekness, and practicing, also, that affirmation of our neighbor in good, affirming, even in our words, affirming all that we see that is good in our neighbor, affirming in such a way, giving also fraternal correction, trying to help our neighbor overcome what is evil, overcome whatever his struggles might be, help him to move to a place where he should be, out of the place where he shouldn't be, and into the place where he should be, and affirm the good, correct the evil.
All of that is a duty of charity in our words.
And lastly, loving our neighbor in our works.
There are many people that say they love their neighbor, but are not willing to suffer any personal inconvenience, St. John Chrysostom says.
Now, if somebody else pays the price, I'll love my neighbor if it's at no cost to me.
And we forget that it's at the cost of our own personal convenience that we have to love our neighbor, as the Good Samaritan did, have to change his plans, re-eroute his trip, pay for his convalescence out of his own purse.
And that's what it means to love our neighbor, and to love not only those who are family members, or who are friends, or who love us, because even the pagans do that, but love those who are strangers, who are enemies, who do no good to us.
That is truly loving our neighbor in our works.
Ah, this is what our Lord says will make us recognizable as Christians.
Love one another, our Lord says.
And this love that we have for one another is what makes us truly his disciples.
Love in our thoughts, love in our words, and love in our actions as well.
Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.