First Readings: Galatians 1:6-12
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 111
Gospel: Luke 10:25-37
Before every football game that I ever played all of my coaches had one resounding message: "hold nothing back." I was always taught to go out every game and give it everything that I had. We were always told to "leave it all on the field." This meant that when we played a game we should play our hearts out; with all of our strength, courage, passion, energy, desire ... everything. so by the end of the game when we walk off of the field, we had left everything that we had played with in that game, and therefore did not hold a single thing back. We were told that if we did this, then we would be winners.
The same is true with our faith life. Today in the gospel we are told that in order to gain eternal life we must love God with all our heart, our being, our strength, and our mind; and we must love our neighbor as our self. This requires us to love God with all that we are, and to not hold back anything from Him. It is not enough to just say that we love God, we must show it. In our faith life, we need to "leave it all on the field." God does not hold back His love for us, he never stops loving or caring about us because He is too busy or too tired. No, God opens Himself up to us to receive Him, but it is we who hold back and do not fully accept His love and grace. If God never holds back on us, shouldn't we work to love Him the same?
Let us pray for the holy Spirit's guidance in our lives to help lead us to heaven; and to help us remove any barriers that prevent us from loving God with our whole being and keep us from being loving and merciful to our neighbors. For if we leave it all on the field with God and hold nothing back, then we too can inherit eternal life.
Father above, we thank you for the gift of this day and for all that you give to us. Lord, help us to love you with all our heart, mind and strength from now until the end of our days on this earth. Lord we pray for the compassion to love our neighbors as ourselves and pray for the strength to love. Lord, be with all those who are struggling on their faith journey and all those seeking you. We ask this all through Christ our Lord. Amen.
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