ISAIAH 66: 18-21
PSALM 116 R. Mk 16:15
HEBREWS 12: 5-7, 11-13
LUKE 13: 22-30
God has blessed us in so many ways with his gifts, the greatest of which is to live in love for God has created us all in His own image. And God has given us the gift of free will to choose, for it is in our free will to choose that we can come to know what love is.
But our love today is not perfect. God’s perfect love is offered to us through Christ’s death and resurrection. It is in heaven where that love becomes perfect.
Our pilgrim journey on earth is about making choices today for God’s love. A life that chooses for God’s love today will reach for that perfect love in the end. We will become what we choose today.
The first step is to recognise our need of God’s mercy and love, for we cannot in ourselves attain the perfect love and eternal life but depend on God. It is about being humble before God. Hence, the sacraments are God’s gifts today to help us choose for God. Choosing for God’s love today is longing for God and so making time for God in prayer. But choosing for God’s love is more than just words.
Jesus in speaking about God’s judgement said that those who fed the hungry and thirsty, who clothed the naked, who visited the sick and those in prison are the ones who have lived in God’s love.
It is about always seeking to care for those in need.
It is about treating others with respect and love.
It is about living in God’s love.
And so today as we place the plaque professing that we believe and respect all life, let us speak out for all who have no voice, the unborn, the terminally ill, the elderly, the foreigner, refugees, the asylum seeker, the poor, the lonely, the hungry and the oppressed. They are all God’s gifts to us to help us to teach us how to love.
Our Gospel reading is all about being ready to enter Heaven. Heaven is all about living and being in God’s love. If we spend a lifetime rejecting this love, why would we want that love when we die. We wouldn’t even recognize it or what it meant. It is not God’s who shut us out of heaven but we shut shuts heaven from our hearts
Merredin Catholic Parish 