These opening weeks of January have been like the opening sprint of 2024 for my family and my professional community. I start traveling again next week for work and I find myself soaking up welcome morning routines of walking, coffee with Brigid and making breakfast for our kids. Our evenings have consisted of many dinners together, running around to practices and some fun activities like family hikes in the rain, instrumental music concerts and CYO basketball. God is good.
I am sharing two resources from meetings I have been part of this past week- the song below started one off on a positive message, and I think it sets a healthy tone for this beginning month of the calendar year. The reflection that follows comes from my morning reading today, with a helpful reminder of God’s invitation to us to be other-centered. Here’s to the week ahead! Blessings to you and yours.
From Rachel Held Evans, Inspired
Jesus made it clear that he did not come to abolish the laws of the Torah, “but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17). The life and teachings of Jesus, then, embody all that these laws were intended to be. Jesus is what the living, breathing will of God looks like. This includes compassion for the poor, esteem for women, healing for the sick, and solidarity with the suffering. It means breaking bread with outcasts and embracing little children. It means choosing forgiveness over retribution, the cross over revenge, and cooking breakfast for the friend who betrayed you…
When Jesus was challenged by the experts on the Law to give an answer for what Scripture is all about, he offered a very straightforward, very Jewish response. Quoting Deuteronomy 6 and Leviticus 19, he replied, “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind, this is the greatest and first commandment.’ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22: 37-40).
This is the point of every liberation, every wandering through the desert…To love is to honor God and keep God’s commandments…Love is the ultimate deliverance story, for only love can sustain the sojourner.
Keeping the Faith 