Love God First

Reflection for October 25, 2026 – 30^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus hands down the “greatest commandment” — to love God with all your heart, soul and mind. Find today’s reading here.

When the iconic Notre-Dame Cathedral of Paris burned in 2019, some made the argument that the money necessary to rebuild it would be better spent by the Church on providing services to the poor.

“After all,” I heard someone argue. “History is important, but humanitarianism is our religion.”

Close, but — as my father likes to say — no cigar.

Humanitarianism is actually not our religion, and you should never let anyone tell you it is. It’s a small mistake, but it can become a big one, fast. Humanitarianism is wonderful — it describes a set of principles animated by an underlying belief in the value of human life. But this is not sufficient. We can’t start with loving people and work our way up to God.

Why? Because I promise you, we will never end up reaching God.

If you have any doubt about this, you can consult literally any history book. Every war, every famine, every political disaster since the dawn of time has resulted from an attempt to put people first. “We’re putting our people first,” governments say — always right before they do something really, really heinous.

For what it’s worth, the Church hasn’t owned the Notre-Dame de Paris since the French Revolution. It was seized and rededicated to the Cult of Reason — the atheistic state religion that, it assured everyone, put people first (and put those people who disagreed to death at the guillotine).

We can’t start with love of people, because we will always displace some of the other people. Only by starting with love of God — heart, soul, and mind — can we enter the narrow gate of correctly loving other people.

©LPi