Title: Meditation: Monday, February 18, 2002
The Catholic Calendar for Monday, February 18, 2002
The First Week of Lent
Scripture from today's Liturgy of the Word:
Leviticus 19:1-2,11-18
Psalm 19:8-10,15
Matthew 25:31-46
A Reflection on Today's Scripture:
As long as you did not do it for one of these least ones,
you did not do for me. (see Matthew 25:45)
Lent calls us to repentance and self-denial that we might be restored by
the healing power of Christ to what God intended us to be: creatures
imbued with His love and truth. We who have answered God's call to
follow His Son, are to abandon living in sin and cooperate with God's
work of transforming us into Christ's holy image. This is the very
reason that Jesus gave His life for us; He put our sin to death in His
own body and gave us new life, a new life that we're obliged to live.
Just as He gave Himself for us, we are to give ourselves for one
another.
How are we to do this? Jesus tells us in today's Gospel that the best
means of self-giving is through performing simple everyday acts of
kindness, in charity fulfilling the needs (physical, emotional and
spiritual) of those God puts in our lives. We are seldom asked to
perform the extraordinary; indeed, if we deliberately set out, apart
from God's promptings, to do "great" works, make severe sacrifices, we
will be feeding our selfish pride, seeking praise or arousing gratitude
or envy. When the love of God truly abides in a person, he will act
simply and instinctively in proportion to the need.
Nothing delights a parent more than seeing siblings show genuine caring
for one another. So it is with God who desires us to practice the most
basic truth in life: we are our brother's keeper. What we fail to do
for another diminishes not only that person but also all of mankind.
What we do to help and affirm our fellow humans ultimately benefits all.
Whether we sin or do good, we never act in isolation. What we do or fail
to do inevitably has a domino effect.
Loving Savior,
we call out to You for mercy
and plead for the grace that will unite us
in new life to you. Amen.
- Marie L. Bocko, ocds ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
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All scripture quotes are from the Douay-Rheims edition of the Catholic Bible.
Full text from the New American Bible: http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/index.htm
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