Study:  Reflect on some people who live their faith through their loving thoughts, words, and actions.

Pray:  Is there a person or situation in your life that calls for greater charity?  Ask the Lord for the wisdom and guidance to do it.

Serve:  Is there someone in your life right now who would benefit from your time, attention, and/or effort?  How can you help?

Mass Readings – 30th Sunday of the Year

What is the central and most important part of being a Christian? What should be the focus around which we build our lives?

The answer is explicit: LOVE.

Jesus takes the two commands, love of God and love of neighbor and links them as the heart of the Christian message – from which the teaching of the entire Scriptures finds its soul. Love is the sign of the Church, it is the proof of faith, and it is the reality which reveals to others the depth of our commitment as disciples of Jesus Christ.

But what do these commands mean for us? After all, the question for each of us is “How does the law of Love affect me? How do these commands shape my life?”
I look at this from three different angles:

* By how I THINK.
* By how I SPEAK.
* By how I ACT.

In other words, do my thoughts, words, and actions reveal the law of love in my life? When I look at myself in each of these areas do I measure up with the commands of Jesus?

Imagine that each of these parts of life could be made into a movie. I see myself watching “The Thoughts of Fr. Andrew,” followed by “The Words of Fr. Andrew,” and then “The Actions of Fr. Andrew.” Do I like what I see on the screen?

When we come to the end of our lives, I doubt if many of us will wish we had worked more, or earned more money, or bought more things. In the end I expect most of us will wish we had spent more time loving the people in our lives – through what we thought, said, and did.

This love, which comes from God, is intended for us to share while we are here on earth. Our faith tells us that one day the Lord will call us home. On that day may we find ourselves prepared; having loved one another in this life we will then step into eternal Love in the Kingdom of Heaven.

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Archive of Fr. Andrew’s Podcasts

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Note: This blog was first published on October 20, 2014.