Tag: Deuteronomy

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How do we love?

God loves me into existence. He has loved me since before he formed me in my mother’s womb,1 and he will love me long after my bones turn to dust.2 Every moment of my existence is due to God’s love for me.

How do I respond to this love? The only response that could possibly be close to sufficient is to love God with every bit of my existence: with all my heart, and with all my soul, and with all my mind.3 God has given me everything, so it makes sense that I should love him back with everything. But what does this look like? There are some obvious answers to what loving God looks like: attending Mass, praying, trying not to sin. But that is not all that is required of me.

God doesn’t just love me into existence. God loves you into existence, too. God loves everyone that you or I will meet today into existence. Every person who has ever existed: Donald Trump, Barack Obama, St. Pope John Paul, St. Mother Teresa, the guy down the street who is always mad about your lawn, the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Peter: God loves them all into existence. Immediately after telling us to love God, Jesus tells us that we must love our neighbors as ourselves.4 To truly love God, we must also love those whom he loves. To say we love God and to mistreat our neighbor at the same time is hypocrisy! Jesus tells us that whatever we do to the least of our brothers and sisters, we do to him.5 If we want to love God, we must also love all our brothers and sisters in this world.6

Love is not a thing that we can practice sometimes. We can’t act in hate toward one person and expect it not to have an effect our ability to love another person. This works in our favor, though! When we act out of true love for someone, it grows our ability to love in general. By loving our neighbor, we learn to love. We learn to love God by loving our neighbor, and by loving our neighbor we love God.7

But what does this look like? How do we love our neighbors?

The readings today give us a great starting point. God called the Israelites—and us—in the Exodus to treat the foreigners among us as any other citizen, because ultimately, we are all citizens not of this earth, but of heaven. We should not do wrong to those who are vulnerable, such as widows or orphans. Paul tells and shows us that by living a moral life, we can become models of good behavior, and love our brothers and sisters by showing them the way to happiness. We turn away from our idols of self and let go of the idea that we must protect our time from the encroachment of our neighbors. A wise priest once told me never to make my schedule too tight: we must allow for those “God moments,” where you run into someone who just needs to talk.

But we can do better than this. Love is the only virtue that remains in Heaven, so it is critical to work on it as much as we can! I believe that the best examination of our love was written by St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians:

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.8

we can use this as an examination of conscience to see how we are doing with love. Have I been patient with myself? Have I been kind to my neighbor? Have I born the burdens that God has allowed me to experience this day?

Love your neighbor as yourself, so that you are able to love the Lord, your God, with all of your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

Today’s Readings:
Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A
Exodus 22:20-26; Psalm 18:2-3, 3-4, 47, 51; 1 Thessalonians 1:5c-10; Matthew 22:34-40

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Reflection for the Third Wednesday of Lent

“Glorify the Lord, O Jerusalem; praise your God, O Zion. For he has strengthened the bars of your gates; he has blessed your children within you.”

God has strengthened Jerusalem against attack and has blessed those who grow within her walls. What a wonderful image! It becomes even more wonderful when we recognize that we visit the Heavenly Jerusalem each time we participate in the Mass! By our participation in the Mass, we allow God to strengthen us and to help us grow closer to him.

One of the ways that God helps us to grow is through his law. The law given to the Israelite people in Deuteronomy was one of the wonders of the ancient world. The reading today tells us that nations marveled at the intelligence and wisdom of Israel. No other kingdom had a law so just. God had designed the law to help Israel flourish. Sadly, the Israelites could never fully keep the law; therefore, they only partially experienced its wonder.

The law and the prophets—an ancient saying referring to all the Old Testament—were not abolished by Jesus. Jesus even says that not one iota—basically the dot on an ‘i’—of the law would pass away. The sacrificial elements of the old law are fulfilled through Jesus’s sacrifice on the Cross, so they no longer bind us. The moral elements of the law, however, were expanded and refined by Jesus in his ministry. Today’s Gospel, fittingly, comes from the Sermon on the Mount, where the moral code for all who are citizens of the Kingdom of God, that is, all the baptized, is given. This is the updated and refined law.

The antiphons we proclaim today are a perfect fit. At Communion, we said “You will show me the path of life, the fullness of joy in your presence, O Lord.” (cf. Ps 16:11) God has indeed shown us the path of life: the new law, which we find most plainly in the Gospels. This path, the law, will lead us to great joy if we follow it. Let us remember to pray often to God, asking him as we did at the beginning of Mass today, to “Let my steps be guided by your promise; may evil never rule me.”

Today’s Readings: Dt 4:1, 5-9; Ps 147:12-13, 15-16, 19-20; Mt 5:17-19

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Reflection for the First Saturday of Lent

In the reading from Deuteronomy, the Israelite people promise to follow God’s laws and walk in his ways. God, in turn, promises to bless the people of Israel. The psalm reinforces this, saying “Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord!” To follow God’s law is the easiest way to walk in his ways. But we cannot let the law become an end to itself—we must always remember that God is the measure, not mankind or a book of law.

Jesus reminds us of this in the Gospel today, where he tells us to “be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” We are called to go beyond the law, to be perfect. For example, Jesus tells us not simply to love God, but also to love our enemies. To be perfect is impossible for human beings, which is why we must constantly ask God for help. By submitting ourselves to the mercy of God, and praying for his assistance, we can be assured that he will eventually grant us the grace to be perfect if we do our best to follow in his ways.

Today’s Readings: Dt 26:16-19; Ps 119:1-2, 4-5, 7-8; Mt 5:43-48

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Reflection for Thursday after Ash Wednesday

Today’s Readings: Dt 30:15-20; Ps 1:1-2, 3, 4 & 6; Lk 9:22-25

The first reading today tells us that to live a long and happy life, we must choose to follow God and his commandments. If we “hold fast” to God and his teachings, he will provide for us. To do otherwise would lead to misery and death. But we find out in today’s Gospel that this will not be easy. Jesus tells us that to follow him, we will have to take up our crosses daily and follow him. The world will reject us, because we who follow God are a sign against the evil in this world. But we must do this, “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” This is not always a physical losing of life, but can also refer to giving up many good things for the sake of the Kingdom of God. In a way, this is what fasting, abstinence, and the practice of giving something up during Lent helps to teach us. They all teach us to focus less on what we have in this world, and to raise our eyes towards the next world.

Let us remember to always raise our eyes toward God, and above the desires for things of this world, for “What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?”