Friday, January 4, 2019

The Lord: Our Allotted Portion and Our Cup

In tomorrow's Entrance Antiphon, we pray: "O Lord, my allotted portion and my cup, you it is who hold fast my lot.  For me the measuring lines have fallen on pleasant sites; fair to me indeed is my inheritance."

That inheritance is not something you and I deserve. The inheritance of life forever with God in heaven is an inheritance for which an immense ransom was paid: the human birth, life, sufferings, death and resurrection of Jesus from the dead.  The Incarnate God poured out his blood, became the sacrificial lamb, for you and me! The "Lord [is our] allotted portion and [our] cup" at the price of Jesus' life and death on the cross.   It is a free gift of God's unconditional love for you and me!

Like Jesus, you and I pass "from death to life" in loving our brothers and sisters (compare tomorrow's first reading, 1 John 3: 11-21).  John reminds us that "[w]hoever does not love remains in death. Everyone who hates his brother [or sister] is a murderer and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him [her]. The way we came to know love was that he [Jesus] laid down his life for us; so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers [sisters]. If someone who has worldly means sees a brother [sister] in need and refuses him [her] compassion, how can the love of God remain in him [her]? Children," John says to us, "let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth."

John puts it on the line for us! And God Himself has written this law of love on everyone's heart. We have no excuses for walking by someone in need and not helping if we have the means to help, whether that be financial means, material means or spiritual/psychological means to make a difference in that person's life by acts of love, by caring, by acting compassionately.

How do you and I measure up to what God is asking of us?

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