Love God and Your Neighbor

October 8, 2007

Monday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time

By Beth DeCristofaro

You will rescue my life from the pit, O Lord. When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the LORD; my prayer reached you in your holy temple. (Jonah 2:7-8)

Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?” He answered, “The one who treated him with mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.” (Luke 10:36-37)

Piety

Glory be to you, O God, who gives me air to breathe, food to eat, work for my hands and destinations for my feet. Let my every breath, every bite, every clasp, every step, be to your glory and honor. May my soul rest in you and may you rest in me. Amen

Study

http://www.usccb.org/nab/100807.shtml

How hard we work to run away from God. “No, not me” we respond. Or “Not today, I have something already planned” or “Ok, if you do this for me, God, I’ll do that for you…”

It took a miraculous, frightening intervention to get through Jonah’s hard head. C. S. Lewis said “You don’t have a soul, you are a soul. You have a body.” In extreme, with his soul at it’s most vulnerable, Jonah called out to God. In moments of fear and hopelessness do we remember God? Practice makes perfect and Jesus gives us many stunning examples of how to practice, to put ourselves into God’s presence every day, so that in our most extreme need we can, indeed, rest in the sure knowledge that God is with me.

Do we need to wait until the extreme? In daily mundane, tiring, vexing and boring moments of our day, are we aware that “we are soul” and that our soul stands before God each moment? How ready are we to cross the road to help the stranger or to let her cross to help us? Is fear an obstacle? Is our lack of time a boundary? Are we oblivious?

God wants us to jump out of the ship. Peter voluntarily tried it in order to reach his Lord. What’s the worst that can happen? We’ll touch an untouchable as in Jesus’ parable? Perhaps we’ll get swallowed by a whale. God is with us in the worst and the best of moments.

Action

An interesting online opportunity sponsored by EPS: The free series called “Saints in the City” will look at ethical principles that we can put to use on the job and at how our spiritual lives can nourish and be nourished by our work. http://eps.trinitydc.edu/ Click on “Workshops and Special Programs (Theology in Practice)” on the left column.