Love the Lord your God ....
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
There is no other commandment greater than these.
- Mark 12

Tenth Week of Ordinary Time

Sunday begins the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time, when Jesus says, "Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God
is my brother and sister and mother."

Monday is the Memorial of St. Barnabas, the Apostle. Wednesday is the Memorial of Saint Anthony of Padua, Priest and Doctor of the Church.

During the week, we begin a three week period of looking at the Books of Kings. Elijah follows the Lord's direction and changes the hearts of many. The week ends as Elijah calls Elisha into service for the Lord.

This week we begin reading the Gospel According to Matthew, starting with the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is the new Moses, and offers us a new and radical teaching. It begins by his telling a small group of followers that they are blessed - not because they have their acts together, but because they are spiritually poor, meek, those desiring justice, the merciful, the clean of heart, the peacemakers and the persecuted. Salt and light explain who they are as disciples. They are to obey the law and prophets which Jesus came to fulfill. Whereas the law forbad killing, Jesus calls his disciples to be reconcilers. The law forbad adultery, but Jesus warns about lust and whatever is an occasion for sinning. The law forbad taking false oaths, but Jesus calls his disciples to a deeper fidelity and integrity.

Sunday is the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time, when Jesus compares our faith to the mustard seed. Our faith, like that tiny seed, can grow large and put forth large branches, having an effect on those who we may not even know we have touched.

Daily Prayer This Week

Having celebrated God's love for us through the Eucharist on Sunday, we are ready to enter this week to explore the depth of that love and the powerful call each of us is given to love one another. The Sermon on the Mount can help us be contemplatives in action this week. The Beatitudes are not eight new commandments. Rather, Jesus saw those following him and saw their weakness and their need, their goodness and their desire, even the cost they pay to follow him. He looked at them and called them “Blessed.”

Let us all begin this week letting Jesus look at us and call us blessed. Each morning we can practice choosing to focus our attention on some way we are spiritually poor or desiring justice, some way we are merciful or a peace maker, some way we might be experiencing the cost of being a believer, and simply asking our Lord to convince us of our blessedness there. It is likely that each of us, every day, can be attentive to some aspect of our daily lives, some part of our relationships or responsibilities, that place us right there in a place for Jesus to tell us that we will be comforted, satisfied, blessed beyond our imagining.

Some day this week, each of us will have the opportunity to be the salt that makes relationships, faithful living, have its flavor. We will have our chances to be light in the midst of the darkness that crosses our paths. We can ask Jesus those days - whether in the morning, or in brief background moments during the day - to have us not lose our flavor or to cover our light. And, all of us will face the greater responsibility of a disciple of Jesus, to avoid anger and find the path to reconciliation, to turn from lust and greed and to love genuinely and honestly.