Memorial of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, virgin
A few weeks ago, I was out getting groceries. It shouldn’t really be a surprise, but every year I am struck when Christmas sales, advertisements, and candy start hitting the shelves before my children get to go trick-or-treating. As we look toward the holiday season, Thanksgiving and Christmas tend to be filled with a lot of eating, drinking, buying, selling, eating some more; getting presents, giving presents, decorating, celebrating, and did I mention eating and drinking? If we allow it, the busy-ness of it all can cause such distraction that our attention steers far away from what we are reminded of in our readings today. We are called to walk in the truth and follow the law of the Lord.
The theme resounding in my heart as I pray with the texts today is this voice warning us to pay attention. Christ is reminding us to stay focused on the truth to be found in His teachings; the foundation of our very lives is to be rooted in the law of the Lord. What is the law of the Lord? Let us love one another. This sounds eerily familiar...likely because Jesus taught that the whole law depends on two commandments: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (MT 22:37) and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (MT 22:39). Let us love one another. What does our family, our church, our workplace, our community, our country, our world look like if we pay attention and stay focused on this? Let us love one another. Blessed indeed are those who follow the law of the Lord.
Jesus issues a very direct warning in the gospel about eating, drinking, buying, and selling. All of the partying and celebrating can detract us from the law of the Lord. The gospel verse uses the language, “stand erect and raise your heads” (Lk 21:36); pay attention, stay focused, let us love one another. As tumultuous as this year has been, and as we think about the coming holidays and the new year (both in the church and in secular culture), may we take the opportunity to focus on the law of the Lord and seek to find ways to think like Jesus, talk like Jesus, act like Jesus. Let us love one another.
Blessings,
Brandon Meyer