Sirach 35:1-12, Psalm 50:5-8, 14 & 23, Mark 10:28-31
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Sirach 35:1-12
Keeping the commandments to love God and neighbor faithfully and in all circumstances is a peace offering acceptable to God. To return kindness for harm and to give generously in imitation of the Beloved is praise in action and honors and glorifies God.
To renounce sin and turn resolutely from temptation, to avoid people and places that may lead us to sin and being just in the face of injustices makes atonement for our wrongdoing and God will be moved to forgive us.
All that I give my Lord must be given joyously and generously, God dislikes a stingy giver. All that we offer God especially when it costs us dearly, must be given with a smile. Give as God gives with a generous heart, open hands and a cheerful disposition. God repays more generously than we can ever imagine and more than we deserve. He exaggerates our good deeds and rewards us sevenfold.
It is good to know that God judges impartially and all will get a just and fair hearing unlike the judges of this world.
Psalm 50:5-8, 14 & 23
How can I walk blamelessly Beloved if You do not walk with me? If You do not send Your Holy Spirit to dwell in me and inspire me? How can I walk blamelessly my Beloved if You do not stay with me, live in me, move in me and have Your Being in me my Lord and my God?
Every breath I draw is because of Your goodness to me. Stay with me my Lord until the end of my journey. Pity me Lord and help me so I can reach home with Your help and grace.
Mark 10:28-31
My Beloved, I know from experience that no one can outdo You in generosity. When You give, You give only as a God of Love can give, without limit. We tend to measure everything by our own yardstick, we are stingy. How often we have seen people who can afford to give a great deal give less than the poor who more often than not give more than the penny pinching rich.
But as Peter asks, what about those my Beloved who have turned their back on the world? Those who on hearing Your call they have responded to Your invitation to be Your disciples and serve in Your vineyard as priests, religious fathers, brothers, sisters as well as lay brothers and sisters? Those who choose to live celibate lives in the world for the sake of the Kingdom? Or anyone for that matter in any vocation even those that are married or still single?
We believe Your word my Beloved that anyone who has heard Your call to serve and have given up everything in order to follow You will receive a hundred fold. Not in the measure that we give do we receive. You give in the measure that only God can give - full measure, pressed down and running over.
Again we see Your loving contradiction when those who have given up all for You - family, homes, children, land and wealth have been given far more fathers, mothers, children, houses, land and wealth, in addition to peace, joy and persecution as well which is also counted as joy - for this is what we expect from the world. If they killed You, we can have no doubt that they will attempt to kill us as well. We go to our death joyfully for no one can steal the reward that You have reserved for us in the Kingdom of heaven where robbers do not steal nor rust destroy.
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