Lenten Message of Pope Francis:
Faith calls us to accept the truth and testify to the truth with my brothers and sisters.
Do I testify to the truth or am I afraid of the consequences?
TODAY'S WORD
By
Fr. Aloysius Santiago sdb
Rector and Parish Priest
Don Bosco Shrine
Lingarajapuram, Bangalore
Deuteronomy: 30:19 "I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live."
TODAY'S REFLECTION
Sometimes the shortest phrases or sentences can be the most powerful and thought provoking.
There is a powerful short phrase in today’s first reading, ‘Choose life’.
In recent times we have tended to set pro-choice and pro-life over against each other.
However, this phrase brings them together, ‘choose life’. To be human is to choose; in that sense there is no alternative to being pro-choice.
The only real question is, ‘What am I to choose?’
Today’s first reading calls on us to choose the supreme value in God’s eyes, which is ‘life’.
It goes on to identify choosing life with living in the love of the Lord, obeying his voice, clinging to him.
To choose life is to choose God. In the words of the reading, ‘in this your life consists’.
In choosing God we choose life, because God is the God of life, the giver of life, the source of all life.
For us Christians, choosing God means choosing God’s Son, Jesus.
In the gospel reading, Jesus says that those who follow him, who choose him, will save their life.
If we love the Lord, cling to him, follow him, we will find life.
Jesus acknowledges that following him will often require us to renounce ourselves, to lose our life, to take up our cross.
Following the Lord will often mean dying to our tendency to put ourselves and our own well-being first, so as to be freer to give ourselves in love to others, putting their well-being before our own.
This was the way of the Lord and it is the way that his Spirit within us inspires us to take.
The dying involved in taking this way will always bring life to ourselves and to others.
In taking this way, we will be choosing life.
QUESTIONS TO PONDER
Is the Lord the most important person of my life?
Do I choose to do actions and live a lifestyle that is pleasing to the Lord?
Do I engage myself in activities that display the Love of God to the people in my life?
RESOLUTION
Let's resolve embrace this call and exhortation of the Lord to follow him by emptying ourselves, being obedient to Gods call and to take up the cross and follow him so to gain life, life in its fullness.
Let's be ready to get attracted to a life of the Cross – total discipline and deep dedication
Wishing you all a fruitful and effective Season of Lent. May Jesus who has started the journey and has been victorious help us to take this journey seriously knowing the his ever abiding presence goes before us.