Love one another

Love one another as I have loved you... this was the focus of the homily given at Church today.  The readings from today touch upon the first and second commandments.  The Gospel centers on a story where a lawyer asks Jesus what is the greatest Commandments?  Jesus answer was to repeat the first two commandments.  The second being the focus of the homily.  The priest made an interesting point about how in today's world almost everything we use technology wise requires us to use an access code whether it be our phones, computers, key vobs to our buildings etc... the same applies how we get into heaven.... we need an access code... and our code is Love.  How we get to heaven is by loving one another.  But he was quick to point out that the definition and our understanding of what love is in our society is often skewed.  And if its any testimony to this last night I was watching Rihanna's latest video "we found love" a video which supposedly depicts her and Chris Browns' relationship and the fallout they had.  And if what is depicted in the video is the modern world's understanding of what love is then we're in serious trouble and so our the kids.  No, love is unconditional and the priest had an interesting way of relating this to what Jesus said on the fatal night of the last supper when he said to his disciples "I give you a new commandment: Love one another as I have loved you"  What this means is unconditionally.   The priest relayed this directly to the crucifixion and this is what Jesus meant.  The cross is both vertical and horizontal, we can't be one dimensional when it comes to our lives and how we live them or how we treat others.  This in a way is also how the cross goes from being a symbol of fear, death and destruction to being the Christian symbol of Love and Victory, Love in it's greatest sense. God demonstrates how we are to love one another through the cross by giving completely of our selves by not withholding for our personal gratification or selfishness.  And let's face it often times we are selfish quite often without meaning to be or even realizing that our actions can be hurtful to others.  And the people we often hurt are the ones living right under our roof.  A simple application of this principle even boils down to a subject I often rant about whether on Bloggin B or amongst friends and co-workers is how people even treat each other out in public especially on the road.  The way people carry on in their cars on a day to day basis is disgusting.  The lack of respect for a fellow human being is abysmal. People cutting each other off, running red lights intentionally when their is heavy traffic, cutting off pedestrians because you don't want to slow down.  I can't tell you how many times I have nearly been hit because someone is trying to beat another car or is busy worrying about the latest text, Facebook or twitter message they got.  And this is apparent even in the Mississauga news for anyone who follows it.  Even the amount of pedestrians killed in Mississauga (I think its been almost 7) over the last few weeks just crossing the street says something about the lack of respect we have for the rights of other people to even have life.  When we are so caught up in ourselves that we fail to respect the rights of a person driving beside us to life because they are in our way says we have lost our way. But it doesn't stop here it goes from the work place to our school yards to our homes.  People are very quick to say do unto others but how often do we follow this principal.  Do you love your neighbor or do you sit there silently when someone like Jamie Hubley is mocked to death.  I know I am guilty of this many times figuratively.  But it goes beyond standing up for someone who is hurting, it goes beyond respecting the rights of others.  Loving your neighbor unconditionally means forgiving as well as giving your all to them.  Its what God did on the cross for us and it is what is expected of each of us and what we should expect from ourselves and each other.