Reflection for the 31st Sunday of Ordinary Time, 2024

Deuteronomy 6:2-6, Psalm 18, Hebrews 7:23-28, Mark 12:28b-34

“Take to heart these words…”

When November spreads out its cool (chilly) gray veil, it alerts us to the coming winter. How appropriate that this is the month in which we pray for our loved ones who have departed “across the veil.” All will be rewarded for the love they spread during their lives, and we can help them by our prayers to “rake up the leaves” of missing acts of love they may have left behind.

The first reading and the Gospel tell us to love, to love God totally, and to love our neighbor….

Before we have loved anyone or anything, we have been drawn to it, and when we are drawn to something repeatedly, we give our hearts to it. A moving scene in nature, a newborn’s giggle, music that thrills the spirit, a good Samaritan – these touches of beauty, truth, or love – draw us to the source of love.

What attracted you to God? What first called to you? Which of the needs deep, deep inside of you threw out a lifeline to the Divine so that you would pray? Didn’t He plant them…maybe long ago?

What are your favorite “magnets” to God? Are they too many to count? Sometimes it feels like we need to borrow His immeasurable love so we have enough to return even some of it!

The Shema (“Hear, O Israel…”) is a central prayer of God’s chosen people, spoken by Moses in Deuteronomy chapter 6 which we hear twice today. The central idea? It is the very nature of God. God is….

November is a month to remember. To look back at the exceeding bounty of goodness in my life, so much that the Shema asks me to give my love back, with all my heart, with all my soul and with all my strength. If I don’t take the whittling knife to my schedule and carve a regular space of time for my God, when will I receive his personal messages to me? When will I “message” Him in return? I have to carve out time deliberately and reserve it as if in my own little cave. Then I take refuge in that precious cave, pause, and open my heart to hear Him. I leave my phone and my worries outside of it.

Mary, help me to do that.

“What have I done to deserve love like this?” a Christian songwriter asks. The answer is-nothing. God’s love is freely given and we are called to love, but we, too, must give our love freely in return.

Your love, dear friends, helps me and encourages me to keep being bountiful in love and praise. Let us pray for one another, that our hearts may be fully open to Him…

“Take to heart these words that I enjoin on you today.”

(If you have the opportunity, I recommend that you listen to the Shema online in Hebrew and then reread it in your own language again- it is beautiful.)