Love Your Neighbour

Encouraged by the Spring Ember Day this week (one of two days in the year the Australian Catholic Bishops have designated as special days of prayer, fasting, and abstinence to focus our attention on our responsibility as stewards of God’s creation) and today’s reading from St Paul’s letter to the Romans, I want to express a little gratitude to my neighbours for the love they have shown me.

I speak not of the people in the houses next door to mine, but of you all who are my neighbours in the biblical sense. When Jesus made the virtue of charity the new commandment, by asking us to love one another as he has loved us, he asked us to act for the good of other people (our neighbours) in ways that contribute to their ultimate union with God. Given all virtues are habits, the more we practice acting in charity towards others, the more fully we possess the virtue, and the closer to God we ourselves become. Such acts need not be grand gestures, or sacrificial in nature, they may be as simple as greeting someone with a smile.

One of the mottos of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, famous for her Little Way to holiness, was to do all that we do with love, particularly in the times that we don’t want to. When she died, one of her Carmelite Sisters, who had boasted to the convent community that she was Thérèse’s favourite sister, was shocked to discover that she was in fact the one with whom Thérèse struggled the most. She hid that struggle by always smiling twice as much at the troublesome sister, so as not to reveal her true negative feelings and thereby hurt the sister.

Perhaps this week you can take the less daunting task of just expressing your gratitude to those people whose loving actions have brought you a little closer to God. I’ll start!

To the parishioner whose face lights up when she sees me enter the cathedral on a Sunday morning, thank you. You have often been the reason I’ve pushed aside the desire to skip Mass and rest at home on the days when my body is screaming in pain.

To the parishioner who gives my hand a squeeze when I join her in the pew for a weekday Mass, thank you. Your quiet devotion inspires me to pray more.

To the priest who anointed me before a serious operation, thank you. You were the only person who asked how I was feeling about it and gave me the peace to accept the outcome whatever it would be.

To the friend who never answers his phone when I call, thank you.  You remind me that being present to the person already before you is important, and I’m grateful for the times when that person is me.

To you all, who are God’s most precious creations, know that I fasted and prayed for you on Spring Ember Day.  Thank you for all that you do as stewards of God’s creation.

This piece was originally published in the St Patrick’s Cathedral, Ballarat newsletter on the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, 6 September 2026.