Love of God and Love of Neighbour

By Sr. Carlette Gentle

This week is World Interfaith Harmony Week.  What is that you ask?  It is an initiative that was started to call Muslims and Christian leaders to engage in a dialogue based on two common fundamental religious Commandments; Love of God and Love of Neighbour, without compromising any of their religious doctrines. 

“What a beautiful initiative.”  One that allows us to take the gaze and focus from ourselves and look out to others.  This is a task that might seem hard because we are trying to change years of what we have been taught.  Growing up, I had friends that came from different religious backgrounds but that didn’t mean a thing to me.  As I got older, I started to learn and understand the differences between the diverse religions. But even though I was learning about them and the different customs, the thing that kept me grounded was my friendship, the LOVE of my friends. I knew them before I knew about religion.  Therefore, our friendship stayed strong because we focussed on the human being, the person inside, the person I knew before stereo types of religion were placed on them, the person I know was praising the same God, but in different ways.  Wouldn’t it be nice if we did not have dividing lines?

I think of a world where the “Love of God and the Love of Neighbour”, is the center of all we do.  When we can all stop and take a look at what we are doing when we say we are praising God.  I think of a world where pain is created just by the natural process of life.  I think of a world where equality is evident and we are all equal.  I think of a world where the supply and demand for food is enough for all of God’s creation.  I think of a world where children can be children and not forced to grow up before their time.  I think of a world where we all strive to uplift and support each other instead of bringing each other down.  I actually dream of a world where we all strive for one common goal and that is to Love God and through loving God, we love our neighbours because God is present in each and every human being no matter who we are.  Wouldn’t that be a world at peace?  We would basically live for God and neighbour waking up every day striving to live for God through our neighbours.  I personally think this can happen and is happening.  Our little spark can become a wild fire.  So let us keep our sparks going. Soon there will be enough sparks that we can create our own worldly wild fire where Love of all is evident in the mix.