Commandment of Love

Summary of a Fr. Gerry Creedon homily from November 05, 2006

"Which is the first of all the commandments?" Mk 12:28

There are ten commandments. Jesus reduced them to two: "You shall love the Lord your God...and you shall love your neighbor as yourself." Some spiritual writers say that they can be reduced to one: Love God. Since God, in Jesus, has identified himself with the neighbor, especially the poor one, we cannot love God truly without loving neighbor also.

At the heart of religion is love, not fear or shame or guilt. Religion makes no room for violence.

This command of love is as intimate as your spouse and as cosmic as creation.

Love always draws us out beyond our boundaries. This weekend, the parish welcomes leaders of the Muslim and Jewish communities to join me in a conversation; "Building Understanding Through Community Involvement." All three of us are representatives to the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, where we work together to combat poverty, the use of the death penalty, and other justice issues. You are welcome to become individual members of our faith based advocacy organization by contacting www.virginiainterfaithcenter.org.

Our Pope John Paul II called the world's religious leaders together at Assisi to consider ways of promoting peace. From their prayer and meeting came a consensus statement that he presented in February 2002 to heads of governments. It was called a Decalogue. In our world of violence, these ten commandments bring home to us the complex demands of love in a conflicted world. Let us as a parish find the ways to build a civilization of love. May our interfaith dialogue promote peace through mutual understanding and solidarity in action for justice.

Decalogue of Assisi for Peace

1. We commit ourselves to proclaiming our firm conviction that violence and terrorism are incompatible with the authentic spirit of religion, and, as we condemn every recourse to violence and war in the name of God or of religion, we commit ourselves to doing everything possible to eliminate the root causes of terrorism.
2. We commit ourselves to educating people to mutual respect and esteem, in order to help bring about a peaceful and fraternal coexistence between people of different ethnic groups, cultures and religions.
3. We commit ourselves to fostering the culture of dialogue, so that there will be an increase of understanding and mutual trust between individuals and among peoples, for these are the premises of authentic peace.
4. We commit ourselves to defending the right of everyone to live a decent life in accordance with their own cultural identity, and to form freely a family of his own.
5. We commit ourselves to frank and patient dialogue, refusing to consider our differences as an insurmountable barrier, but recognizing instead that encountering the diversity of others can become an opportunity for greater reciprocal understanding.
6. We commit ourselves to forgiving one another for past and present errors and prejudices, and to supporting one another in a common effort, both to overcome selfishness and arrogance, hatred and violence, and to learn from the past, that peace without justice is not true peace.
7. We commit ourselves to taking the side of the poor and the helpless, to speaking out for those who have no voice and to working effectively to change these situations, out of the conviction that no one can be happy alone.
8. We commit ourselves to taking up the cry of those who refuse to be resigned to violence and evil, and we desire to make every effort possible to offer the men and women of our time, real hope for justice and peace.
9. We commit ourselves to encouraging all efforts to promote friendship between peoples, for we are convinced that, in the absence of solidarity and understanding between peoples, technological progress exposes the world to a growing risk of destruction and death.
10. We commit ourselves to urging leaders of nations to make every effort to create and consolidate, on the national and international levels, a world of solidarity and peace based on justice.