Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned

Love cannot remain by itself -- it has no meaning. Love has to be put into action, and that action is service – Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

Gospel text (Lk 8,19-21):
The mother of Jesus and his brothers came to him
but were unable to join him because of the crowd.
He was told, "Your mother and your brothers are standing outside
and they wish to see you."He said to them in reply,
"My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it."

If your mother came to visit you, would you leave her standing outside while you were talking with other people? That's what Jesus did. Was Jesus disobeying the fourth commandment by not honoring His mother? No, Jesus was not refusing to honor His mother. He was honoring her even more for her hearing God's word and acting on it, even to the point of the Word becoming flesh in her womb (Jn 1:14). Furthermore, Jesus extended His honor of Mary to include anyone willing to hear God's word and act on it. So Jesus was not dishonoring Mary but honoring her more, and even honoring those who choose to live honorably by hearing and obeying His word.

Will you let the Lord honor you with Mary?

Jesus tells us what we need to do to likewise pertain to his family: «those who hear...» (Lk 8:21) and to hear him we must get close to him, as his own relatives did, when they went where He was, but could not get to him because of the crowd. But, then, they tried to get closer. It might be convenient for us to ask ourselves if, to get closer to the Word of God, we do fight and try to overcome the obstacles we keep finding on the way. Do I devote, every day, a few minutes to reading, listening to or mulling over the Holy Scriptures? St. Thomas Aquinas reminds us «we must continuously meditate on the Word of God (...); this meditation is a powerful help in our fight against sin».

And, finally, to abide by the Word. It is not enough to hear the Word; we must put it into action if we want to become God's relatives. We must put into practice what we are told! This is why it would perhaps be good to ask ourselves whether we only behave obediently when what we are asked just suits us well or is rather easy to do, or if, on the contrary, when it means giving up our comfort, our own prestige, our material things or whatever leisure time we may have at our disposal..., we use to place the Word between parenthesis, until some better time may come.

Let us pray to the Virgin Mary that, as She did, we may hear and abide by the Word of God, so that we shall, thus, be able to follow the path leading to eternal happiness.

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