Meditation 11/04/2018
In today’s Gospel reading from Mark 12:28-34, we see a scribe ask our Lord, which commandments is the greatest? Jesus answers him, “The first is “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord you God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” The Second is this, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself”. This is following the 1st reading from the Book of Deuteronomy 6:2-6, Moses is giving the people instruction on how they should live according to the Law. He is stressing to the people of Israel, how greatly important is to serve the One true God. He is telling them, that they need to have God everywhere they go.
When we go to church, we need to have our minds ready for The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We need to put away our phones, we need not be chewing gum or engaging in idle talk. We need to have our full attention to God during the one to one and a half hour of worship. (Eastern rights and the Extraordinary form of the Mass is about an hour and a half). God is only asking of us to give him sixty minutes. Sixty minutes of uninterrupted worship. Yet, we have people coming to church 10-30 minutes late or even after the Gospel reading is finished and our reverend Father is doing his homily. You have 23 hours in the rest of the day to engage in other activities. Maybe you’re asking yourself, when it comes to your job, your so motivated to be awake and alert and do the very best for your employer right? Well, why not do it for the One, True and Omnipotent God? Does not our Father in Heaven deserve our time and place of devotion towards him?
When we look at another person, do we look that them through the eyes of Christ? When we see Christ in other people, we can love that individual more fully. Because he is prefect love, we can pray to The Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity to give us the grace to love as much as he does. Everyone here has heard about the golden rule. We must deny ourselves daily, pick up our cross and follow him. We must show compassion to not just those who love us, but also to those jeers at us and hate us. We, as a universal church should always be praying for conversion in the world. We must not just talk about Christ’s love, but also walk in the path of Christ to all those we meet. Let us ask our Blessed Mother when we pray the rosary for her motherly intercession and guidance on how to love each other as deeply as she loved her son Jesus.
May the Love of God the Father shine in our inner most part of our souls. May his Son, Jesus teach us to forgive and embrace each other and that God the Holy Spirit brings joy and fulfillment to our daily Journey in life. Amen!
Be Blessed Always,
Aaron JP
Lost Sheep for Christ 
Thank you for the meditation. Many times we don’t listen to THE WORD even though we hear IT. I am grateful that you remind me and us to love the people that dislike us and perhaps to love other neighbors that seems unlovable to me or us.
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Before going to any service, we must pray to God the Holy Spirit to be open to the word of God. By preparing ourselves with prayer and then ask for his Wisdom, He can then penetrate our deepest part of our mind to have a deeper understanding of the living word. When we approach our worship service with an open heart, we can hear the Lord’s whisper.
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