The thing about loving God and our neighbor is already known by us. We know it and we probably practice it. But we rarely take into account that our heart, spontaneously, does not tend to love any or all "neighbors", but our heart tends to seek, love, select and correspond to those who are perceived as friendly and pleasant, while closing doors with the adversaries, with the different ones or simply ignore those who are not particularly interesting to us. And it seems natural to us, and it doesn't cause us any special concern, except for few exceptions.
Listening to the Word of God that warns us not to let resentment, hatred, revenge, etc..., enter us because it hurts mainly ourselves, would be the first move we have to make. But the thing about loving everyone is much more complex, because the natural instinct is to only understand friends. The thing about conforming to love only our own, Jesus has already valued it at another time: if you greet those who greet you, what merit does it have? If you love those who love you? What merit does it have? So, the pagans do the same. (Lk 6:32-33). What's so extraordinary about it? "Love one another, love those who hate you, pray for those who persecute you, if they ask you for half, give them whole…” That is, as disciples of Jesus we have to go beyond the spontaneous idea to love our own, and to those who correspond to us.
To take on these challenges of Jesus we must begin by accepting ourselves, as we are. And at the same time, accepting the mercy of God, who, by loving us and understanding us in our misery, enables us to treat others with the same generosity and unconditionality. It would be impossible to pretend to get along with everyone else, without accepting ourselves and without having experienced God's love and forgiveness.
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