What presently has your heart? What occupies your mind? And what are you trying to gain at perhaps the cost of your soul? How can you love God with all you have? How can we love God with all our heart surrounded by so many others whom we love?

Exodus 22:20-26
1 Thessalonians 1:5C-10
Matthew 22:34-40

While many of us have learned to maintain our composure, we know that deep within, there flows a river of molten negativity that monastic spirituality calls grumbling. It is so common in monastic life that the Rule of St. Benedict admonishes against this in several places throughout. The prevalence of grumbling in the Rule 2 and even in our own personal and spiritual lives 2 shows us an area of growth well worth embracing: obedience seen as humility.

As disciples we are called to foster our relationship with Jesus, to know him in a personal way. And, as with any important relationship in our lives, our relationship with Jesus changes us, helps us to grow more into the woman or man that God wants us to be.

Jeremiah 20:7-9
Romans 12:1-2
Matthew 16:21-27

Jesus tells the story of a farmer whose crop of wheat is attacked by an enemy who sows the seeds of weeds along with the grains of wheat. Once the violent act was done, there is was no going back. The wheat and weeds had to be allowed to grow together.

Wisdom: 12:13, 16-19
Romans: 8:26-27
Matthew: 13:24-43 or 13:24-30

Jesus tells the story of a farmer whose crop of wheat is attacked by an enemy who sows the seeds of weeds along with the grains of wheat. Once the violent act was done, there is was no going back. The wheat and weeds had to be allowed to grow together.

Wisdom: 12:13, 16-19
Romans: 8:26-27
Matthew: 13:24-43 or 13:24-30

Acknowledging Jesus before others incorporates not only the words we speak, but also our actions. The empirical evidence convicting us as Christian should be apparent in every aspect of our lives. The person we portray in the office should be the same we bring home at night, and clearly recognizable as the person who arrives at Sunday Mass. Jesus identifies Nathanael as a person with no duplicity, no guile, no deceit within him.

This Sunday’s Gospel invites us to continue our reflection on the person and mission of John the Baptist. Today we depart from the Gospel of Mark and read a selection from the Gospel of John.

The Gospel for today combines a brief passage from the prologue to John’s Gospel with a report about John the Baptist. As in Mark’s Gospel, the Gospel of John contains no birth narrative. Instead, John’s Gospel begins with a theological reflection that has come to be called the “prologue.” This prologue places the story of Jesus in its cosmological framework. It speaks of Jesus’ existence with God since the beginning of time. In John’s Gospel, Jesus is presented as the fulfillment of the Old Testament and the culmination of the Word, the light that is coming into the world’s darkness.