Maxim Monday: Love every kind of person...

The virtues which will help you acquire and maintain this union and which will be a summary of your Little Institute are:

…the very perfect love of neighbor, which loves every kind of person purely, constantly, and equally in God and for God… Maxims of the Little Institute, 100

There are a number of maxims that speak of unioning love, love of neighbor without distinction as does Paul’s letter to the Galatians in this week’s Sunday Liturgy. Maxim 100 is very long – perhaps the longest of all the maxims. It is the final maxim in Médaille’s Maxims of the Little Institute and what is printed above is one portion of it that reflects what we hear from St. Paul in Galatians, “You are all one in Christ Jesus.” [Galatians 3].

Being Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female were huge cultural realities in Paul’s world. What are the distinctions that have the potential to create divisions in our world? How might we as in the spirit of the Maxims of the Little Institute and in the spirit of Paul’s letter to the Galatians embrace differences and welcome the Dear Neighbor without distinction?