Lent -#Blessitforward

Lent Day 1 - Judged According to Love

The Spanish mystic Saint John of the Cross said that in the evening of life we shall be judged according to our love. In Matthew 25 the nature of love is specified. It is not primarily a feeling, an attitude, or a conviction, but rather a concrete act on behalf of those in need--the hungry, the homeless, the lonely, the imprisoned, the forgotten. It is the bearing of another's burden. 

Here's a challenge: Over the next forty-seven days, resolve to perform a particular and sustained act of love. 

Make several visits to your relative in the nursing home. Converse regularly with a lonely person on your block. Tutor and befriend a kid who might be in danger of losing his way. Repair a broken friendship. Bring together bickering factions at your place of work. Make a number of financial contributions to a worthy organization that needs help. 

Numerous spiritual masters have witnessed to something odd: Belief in God is confirmed and strengthened not so much from intellectual effort as from moral action. 

When a man once asked the English Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins what he must do in order to believe, Hopkins replied, "Give alms." 

As you love through tangible acts, you will come to believe more deeply and to enter more fully into friendship with God. 

by Fr. Robert Barron

Click here for Fr. Barron's website.

Ash Wednesday - Tomorrow's reading reflection

We live in the midst of driving kids to soccer games and music lessons, and working overtime so we can afford the latest gadgets and the most up to date technology for our kids so others, most especially our kids, will think of us as a good parent. We are in a frenzy, squeezing in yoga and a work out at the gym so we can tell ourselves we are taking care of ourselves. But our hearts are troubled, our minds are agitated, our bodies are restless, all the while apprehensive that we don’t quite measure up, even when we are doing all the things we think we ought to be doing. We are hesitant to take time to pray, lest God add to the already taxing demands on our time and energy. In the midst of this contemporary rendering of today’s gospel, Jesus invites us to come home, “Come home to the Love that awaits you, come home to the One who is calling you; just come home.”

This Lent, listen to how God is calling you home. It may be to spend more time with family, or to reach out to a lonely neighbor. Perhaps it’s making a daily practice of reflection on the graces and blessings of the day or attending daily Mass.  How will you recognize God’s voice amidst the clamor of so many insisting calls? How will you know? You will find you are more peaceful, more grateful, more hopeful, more generous, more loving… and it will feel like coming home.

(Adapted from Diane Jorgensen)