DISCIPLESHIP – A Call to Love God Above All and Extending this Love to our Neighbor | Word and Songs Podcast with Sr. Lines Salazar, fsp

DISCIPLESHIP – A Call to Love God Above All and Extending this Love to our Neighbor | Word and Songs Podcast with Sr. Lines Salazar, fsp There are important things in life that should take precedence among the choices we make and in the manner we live our life. In the bible, when a scribe asked Jesus what was the greatest commandment, Jesus summed up his answer into two, saying that the greatest of the commandments, is the love of God and the second, is the love of neighbor. And how do we express our love for God and our neighbor? We show our love for God by our fidelity in living our faith and by our respect and protection of every living thing he created, while we express our love of our neighbor through the loving service we render to our family, friends, and to the people we are called to serve and love. In the gospel of St. John, chapter 3, verse 16: Jesus tells Nicodemus: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Jesus furthers his discourse by elaborating on what he meant, but clearly, Nicodemus did not fully understand what he was saying. Friends, like him and the rest of the disciples, also experience the same. Like them, we need to undergo the gradual pace of learning and understanding the true meaning of discipleship – of who God is in our life, and in recognizing him in the person of another. We are all disciples at the feet of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Master and Teacher, while we are the learners, the disciples who hear and contemplate his words and put them into action by concretizing them in our life. Jesus is not someone who is remote and detached from the realities of our day-to-day existence. In fact, by his incarnation he has become one of us, embracing everything about us, except sin. In the same manner, discipleship requires us to go out of ourselves and touch the life of another. When we are able to step into the shoes of another, we become united with that person, and we come to understand where he is coming from. When we open our hearts to another, we come to realize not only the beauty hidden in the heart of the other person but in ours as well. When we love as Jesus did, we do not withdraw into our own little world. Instead, motivated by his example, we go out to become his arm and legs in helping our brothers and sisters in the community and in society at large. As Pope Francis also says in his book The Joy of the Gospel, when we are moved by Jesus’ example, “We want to enter fully into the fabric of society, sharing the lives of all, listening to their concerns, helping them materially and spiritually in their needs, rejoicing with those who rejoice, weeping with those who weep; arm in arm in others, we are committed to building a new world.” Scriptwriter: Sr. Pinky Barrientos, fsp