Click here to read the daily readings from the USCCB website.

St. Thomas Aquinas defines love as willing and choosing the good of another. Love is the golden rule in action: do unto others what you would have them to do you.

If God is love, then God in His very Self is "the good." God's sheer being is to will and choose the good for all. He asks us to participate in that by loving one another. 

I'm currently reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis (it's been a while since I've made a book refrence. It's about time.  The Grapes of Wrath didn't lend itself to blogging so well). Lewis spends the entire first part of the book exploring the idea of the Law of Nature. He argues that human beings are born with an innate understanding of morality. This law of morality might take different expressions across culture, but it stands nonetheless. An example he gives is marriage. Across cultures you might see monogomy or polygymy, but he says that commitment in relationships is consistently valued. One may commit to many, but he should not have anyone he wants.

This "law of morality" exists and most of humanity knows about it, and yet we don't follow it. It's the only natural law that we can break. It's not like we can jump off a building and choose not to fall! The law of gravity wouldn't allow it.

We were made in the image and likeness of God. That means we were created with the capacity to love, to will and choose the good of others. But the fall placed concupiscence in our hearts. As St. Paul says in Romans 7:15, "I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate." We're governed by sin.

But God wants to free us of that burden. Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus God makes us who we were created to be, so long as we acknowledge that Jesus is the Son of God. But again, to acknowledge that Jesus is the Son of God means that we must life our lives according to His will. Our lives are no longer our own.

To love God involves an entire change of heart, and entire change of life. In fact, to change isn't enough. In God,w e are made new. You are a new creation. So our lives should look different.