Thursday, February 19, 2015

Choices: Daily Mass Homily--Thursday, February 19th, 2015


(Listen to this homily here).

            Each of our readings features the need to make a choice between one of two options. 
Moses eloquently summarizes God’s proposal to His people: “I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse.  Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live.”
The responsorial Psalm was from the very first Psalm—Psalm 1 acts like an introduction to the 149 Psalms to follow.  In it, the righteous and the wicked are in contrasted.  The former would be like a tree planted by still water.  The latter would be chaff. 
And listen again to Jesus’ own words: “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.  For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”
Lent is a time to make a decision.  The key decision is, as the Second Vatican Council stated, to offer ourselves as a gift to another.  May our prayer, fasting and almsgiving allow us to choose life for others.

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