1. “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” This is Charity, or the Love of God: to keep the commandments…. of Christ. To have Charity, we must find out those commandments and how exactly the Lord would want us to observe them; and then obey them as the Lord says in His Apostolic Commission. Learning what those commandments are and how to observe them …AND obeying them is a lifetime work.
2. While the first part of the Encyclical described how love for God is to be shown: “If you love Me keep My commandments,” the second part discussed how some of those commandments are to be observed. We are not at liberty to observe Christ’s commands in any way we want. We cannot feed the hungry in just any way. We have to feed them the way Christ fed them.
3. The second part of the Encyclical also explains how obedience to the commands of Christ shows one’s love of neighbor. The Apostles showed their love of neighbor when they taught the people the commandment to love God as the Lord has commanded them. Many acts or commands that prove one’s love of God are directed towards neighbor. Thus, love of neighbor is love of God
4. This is how the Church continues to exist in those who love God first and then love their neighbor. We are the neighbor of today who is tasked to love God now and hopefully spill that love of God to our neighbors.
5. But with the way our present time was described by the prophets, “their love will wax cold,” true lovers of God will be few, and also, as a consequence, lovers of neighbor. The world has forgotten its reason for existing. (Painting is “The Charity of St. Catherine of Sienna.”)