"Yahweh, your God, commands you to fulfill these norms and these commandments. Obey them now and put them into practice with all your heart and with all your soul." (Deut 26:16-19)
We are all called to live by the commands of love set by God for us to be truly happy with our life. Go out of this boundary and your life would be a total mess and full of misery. Today, let God embrace you, and feel at home with his mercy and love. "Lord what must I do to inherit eternal life?...Go and sell what you have...then come and follow me."
(Mk 10:17-27) To follow Christ is not a matter of giving up everything for the sake of it or merely being content in being able to fulfill His commandments. Let the Lord find in ourselves not only a sincere heart but also a generous heart open to the demands of love that many times calls us to forget ourselves. What God wants from us is love not our sacrifices. "Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, 'You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.'”
Jesus is inviting you not to put limits on your capacity to love. Today seek for what God has prepared for you, ask Jesus and he will tell you. "Let the children come to me and don't stop them, for the kingdom of God belong to such as these." (Mk10:13-15)
The criteria of God in front of others are not like ours; we many times judge from what is exterior. Let us learn from our master to be for all, how he welcome all who comes to him. Verbum Dei Prayer Buddies "The Eucharist, participated actively in faith, is the source of Christian Life and strenght. It is the bread of life and of martyrs." (CBCP Letter)
In the holy Eucharist, we eat the holy body and drink the precious blood of Jesus. When we eat the bread and drink his wine, it means that we accept Jesus in our life at the same time we are also accepting his mission for the humanity. We should value the Eucharist as we value Jesus. Verbum Dei Prayer Buddies "But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality and hypocrisy." (Jas 3:17-18)
Nowadays, so many Christians are just Christians by name but don't even know the fundamentals of the faith. How about us, do we make an effort to know more our faith? Our greatest challenge is to make a difference in this world by integrating our faith with our words, with our options and in the activities of our everyday ordinary life. Know your faith to be able to live it and be worthy to be called Christians. "Who do you say I am? Peter answered, 'You are the Christ.'" (Mark 8:27-33)
Today, Jesus wants us to recognize as lay faithfuls who He is in our life. It is trees walking around." Then again He laid His hands on his eyes; and he looked intently and was restored, and began to see everything clearly." Mk8:22-26 We witnessed the situations of our families, neighbors, friends, acquiantances, or even strangers that need our attention; and how many of us act willingly to give help? JESUS is spitting at our eyes twice to cure our blindness and see the truth and act for the common good. "Man is justified by works and not by faith alone." (James 2:14-24)
People are complaining about poverty and injustice. A lot of people think that they are small, poor, and incapable. No one is too rich and too poor, it is always in the eye of the beholder. As lay faithful what work we can do to inspire people to change their point of view about poverty and let them know that we have a big God to help us? Let's inspire people to dream and work out their dream because no dream is too big and no dreamer is too small. "Who do you say I am? Peter answered, 'You are the Christ.'" (Mk 8:27-33)
Today, Jesus wants us to recognize as lay faithfuls who He is in our life. It is only through recognizing His real identity in our life that we can make true to our options and commitment to stand up for Him as His disciples and authentic in living out His life to promote and preserve the common good for all mankind. "Consider it all my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance and let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." (James 1:1-11)
In our everyday life we experience trials and problems to test us. Faith in God enables us to fight and endure against temptation to cheat, to lie, to be corrupted by the world. Let us ask God to increase our faith so that we can stand firm against the temptations that surround us and be an example for others to follow. |
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