It’s easy to look forward and look kindly upon our family and friends and the neighbors and co-workers, and classmates we know. In the same way it is easy to look away from or look down upon those who are strangers to us, especially those who seem most unlike us. The further we get from our own home, our own parish, or our own neighborhood, the more “other” the people we encounter seem to be. This is when we need to hear again the first line from the first reading. “Thus says the Lord, You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourself in the land of Egypt.” Everyone has been an alien once, has been “other” in some setting. In fact, everyone is a stranger to most of the world. One day, we may depend on that stranger in the grocery store, or at the table next to us, or at the other end of the phone. Let us reach out with love to those strangers, just as we would want them to treat ourselves.
One of the greatest gifts we can give someone else is time. For unlike money we each have a finite amount of time and we can never get any of it back. To show our love for God and for our neighbor, giving the gift of time is the best way to start. We give God our time when we pray. We give our neighbor our time when we go out of our way to do something for them. This is the love Jesus calls us to do in the two great commandments.
Love, Peace, Joy,
Fr. Bob
November 1, Wednesday, is the Solemnity of All Saints, a holy day of obligation. We will celebrate Mass at 8:00 AM and 6:30 PM. All you holy men and women pray for us.
Next Sunday, November 5, Daylight Saving Time ends so the night before (Saturday) the clock “falls back” one hour.
Comments
There are no comments yet - be the first one to comment: