Saturday - March 12, 2022
“I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.”
~~St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta
TODAY'S READINGS
SATURDAY OF THE FIRST WEEK OF LENT
Lectionary: 229
Moses spoke to the people, saying:
“This day the LORD, your God,
commands you to observe these statutes and decrees.
Be careful, then,
to observe them with all your heart and with all your soul.
Today you are making this agreement with the LORD:
he is to be your God and you are to walk in his ways
and observe his statutes, commandments and decrees,
and to hearken to his voice.
And today the LORD is making this agreement with you:
you are to be a people peculiarly his own, as he promised you;
and provided you keep all his commandments,
he will then raise you high in praise and renown and glory
above all other nations he has made,
and you will be a people sacred to the LORD, your God,
as he promised.”
Responsorial Psalm
R. (1b) Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord!
Blessed are they whose way is blameless,
who walk in the law of the LORD.
Blessed are they who observe his decrees,
who seek him with all their heart.
R. Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord!
You have commanded that your precepts
be diligently kept.
Oh, that I might be firm in the ways
of keeping your statutes!
R. Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord!
I will give you thanks with an upright heart,
when I have learned your just ordinances.
I will keep your statutes;
do not utterly forsake me.
R. Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord!
Verse Before the Gospel
Behold, now is a very acceptable time;
behold, now is the day of salvation.
Gospel
Jesus said to his disciples:
“You have heard that it was said,
You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
But I say to you, love your enemies,
and pray for those who persecute you,
that you may be children of your heavenly Father,
for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good,
and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.
For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have?
Do not the tax collectors do the same?
And if you greet your brothers and sisters only,
what is unusual about that?
Do not the pagans do the same?
So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
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Wow! God wants to glorify you!
Today's first reading says, "Today you are making this agreement with the Lord: He is to be your God and you are to walk in his ways…."
God's part in this covenant is: "I will then raise you high in praise and renown and glory!"
Our part of the covenant is to be holy. This gives glory to God. By your holiness, you are praising him because you're acknowledging that his ways are good.
God the Father in turn glorifies you and praises you. Yes, really! He is so pleased with you that he's telling the angels how wonderful you are.
When we sin, we violate our covenant. We break our relationship with God. That is to say, we break ourselves. The promise is always there because God never fails to fulfill his part of the covenant.
It's easy to say with our lips that the ways of God are good, but when our behaviors conflict with the covenant that God has made with us, we hurt ourselves: We feel pain, stress, worry, fear, lonely and unloved. And we hurt others at the same time.
The ways of God can feel painful, too. In today's Gospel passage, Jesus tells us to love our enemies. An enemy is anyone who's unloving toward us. It hurts to give love when we are not loved. But this is a different kind of pain; it's the pain of the Cross. It's unity with Christ on the Cross. In the midst of this pain, the Lord is our God, and our covenant relationship with him strengthens us and blesses us. He glorifies us.
Wouldn't you rather suffer with Jesus and experience the joy of his glorious resurrection than suffer the self-destruction of turning away from Jesus? The problem is: Our natural inclination is to avoid all kinds of suffering, and this is probably the root cause of the sins of all faith-filled Christians.
Identify a sin you're struggling with. Then ask the Holy Spirit, "What am I trying to protect myself from when I commit this sin?" For example, when I sin against God by disbelieving his Word about answering our prayers, I'm unthinkingly trying to protect myself from disappointment. Once we bring out into the open the lies that interfere with our trust in God, holiness becomes much easier.
God Bless You.....
The mother of Jesus promised St. Dominic that, “one day through the rosary & the scapular I shall save the world!”
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