Knowing God Through Love
Memorial of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Gospel Reflection for August 22nd, 2025
As humans, we were made in the image and likeness of God; because of this, we can understand that we were not made to glorify ourselves, but rather, we were made to show forth the glory of God to the rest of the world. Earlier in the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus says that we should “take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father” (Matthew 6:1). He goes on to describe that the “hypocrites,” who are the scribes and the Pharisees, typically obey the Law for the purpose of being seen as holy by others and not for the purpose of being close to God. It is clear then that the Pharisees were a group of people who were so focused on their own self-image that they forgot to also honor God with their actions.
Because of this, Christ’s response in today’s Gospel likely came as a surprise to the Pharisees. The whole Law, he says, depends on loving God and loving others. The way we follow God and form a genuine relationship with him is by loving him, and while loving him does involve obeying him, we need not focus on the rules so much that we forget they are meant to guide us back to him. And, when we truly love the Lord, we will love others around us; each human was created in the image of God, so each of us are endowed with the same amount of dignity. There is no reason that each of us as individuals had to be here; it is only because God wanted us to be in existence that we are here. Surely, if each of us are wanted by God, we are worthy of love; in fact, loving every other human as part of God’s creation is a way to give honor to God himself. Loving God means recognizing the inherent beauty of his creation. God does not want us to follow his commands only for the sake of being obedient. He wants us to grow to truly love him through what he tells us to do, which is precisely why we must first start with loving him and his creation.