WHAT'S THE MOST IMPORTANT THING?

"So," Father asked a class of 7 year-olds or so the other day at Mass, "what's THE MOST IMPORTANT THING?"

We'd just heard the Gospel in which Jesus repeats the First and Second Commandments given to Israel in the Old Testament - the First, to love God with all our heart, all our soul and all our might; and the Second, to love one another. And although they'd heard the children's version of the Gospel (has that ever been canonically approved?) Father sat down and put those commandments another way. A really different way.

He asked the children, "So what's THE MOST IMPORTANT THING?" The children didn't know.

"LOVE ONE ANOTHER!" said Father.

And then he went on to say how hard that is to do. When someone calls you names, or gets you in trouble with the teacher, or leaves you out of their games. But that being friends with one another was still THE MOST IMPORTANT THING.

I badly wanted to ask Father, "So why is that the second Commandment, and not the First?"

This pernicious idea, the elevation of fraternal love over filial love, has permeated Catholicism for far too long. It's the idea behind Father facing the congregation at Mass instead of facing God on the altar. It's behind the tuneless, wishy-washy 'songs' about serving one another that we get to sing. It's behind the sidelining of the Blessed Sacrament, so that in church we don't have God getting in the way of catching up with one another. It's behind the whole 'Church of Nice' in which we never ever tell anyone they're doing anything wrong in case we hurt their feelings.

Father was right to say how hard it is to love one another. In fact it's impossible - unless we first love God. If we don't love God, we don't know what love really is.

It's not being nice to people, it's not giving to Caritas, it's not even going to Mass on Sunday, unless we do those things for the right reason - which is to give glory to God. And we won't want to give glory to God unless we love Him,  and get to know how He loves us - by keeping His commandments.

In the right order. Loving Him FIRST. Because He loved us FIRST.