To love God is not simply something very important for man: it is the only thing that matters absolutely, that for which he was created and, therefore, his fundamental task here on earth and, then, his only eternal task in Heaven; that in which he attains his happiness and fulfillment. Without this, man's life is empty. Truly accurate were those words that, after a life of many physical sufferings, were written by a soul who loved the Lord very much: "what frustrates a life," he wrote in a small note, "is not pain, but the lack of love. This is the great failure: not to have loved. To have done perhaps many things in life, but not to have carried out what really mattered: the Love of God.
We read today in the Gospel of the Mass1 that, with the intention of tempting him, of twisting his words, a Pharisee approached Christ and asked him: Master, which is the principal commandment of the Law? Perhaps he expected to hear something that would enable him to accuse Jesus of going against Scripture. But Jesus answered him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. God does not ask for Himself an extra place in our heart, in our soul, in our mind, together with other loves: He wants the totality of love. Not a little of love, a little of life, but He wants the totality of being. "God is All, the One, the Absolute, and must be loved ex toto corde, absolutely," without limit or measure.
Christ, the God made man who comes to save us, loves us with a unique and personal love, "is a jealous lover" who asks for all our love. He waits for us to give him what we have, following the personal vocation to which he called us one day and continues to call us daily in the midst of our chores and through the circumstances - pleasant or not - that occur in each day. "God has the right to tell us: do you think of Me, do you have My presence, do you look for Me as your support, do you look for Me as the Light of your life, as a shield, as everything?
"Therefore, reaffirm yourself in this purpose: in the hours that the people of the earth call good, I will cry out: Lord! In the hours that it calls bad, I will repeat: Lord!". Every circumstance should serve us to love Him with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind..., with our whole existence. Not only when we go to the temple to visit him, to receive communion..., but also in the midst of work, when pain, failure, or unexpected good news arrives. Many times we have to tell Him in the intimacy of our heart: "Jesus, I love You", I accept this contradiction with peace for Your sake, I will finish this task because I know that it pleases You, that it is not indifferent to You that I do it in one way or another.... Now, in our prayer, we can say to Him: Jesus, I love You..., but teach me to love You; may I learn to love You with my heart and with works.