| "You shall love the Lord your God."
(Mark 12:30)
Reflection.
Since my longing for martyrdom was powerful and unsettling, I turned to the
epistles of Saint Paul in the hope of finally finding an answer. By chance the twelfth and
thirteenth chapters of the first epistle to the Corinthians caught my attention, and in
the first section I read that not everyone can be an apostle, prophet or teacher, that the
Church is composed of a variety of members, and that the eye cannot be the hand. Even with
such an answer revealed before me, I was not satisfied and did not find peace.
I persevered in the reading and did not let my mind wander until I found this encouraging
theme: "Set your desires on the greater gifts. And I will now show you the way which
surpasses all others." For the Apostle insists that the greater gifts are nothing at
all without love and that this same love is surely the best path leading directly to God.
At length I had found peace of mind.
Love appeared to me to be the hinge for my vocation. Indeed, I knew that the Church had a
body composed of various members, but in this body the necessary and more noble member was
not lacking; I knew that the Church had a heart and that such a heart appeared to be
aflame with love. I knew that one love drove the members of the Church to action, that if
this love were extinguished, the apostles would have proclaimed the Gospel no longer, the
martyrs would have shed their blood no more. I saw and realized that love sets off the
bounds of all vocations, that love is everything, that this same love embraces every time
and every place. In one word, that love is everlasting. .. Saint Theresa of the
Child Jesus
Lenten Action.
A diet of amoral and immoral programs can and will corrupt your values. Do you
control the media you watch and listen to?
Prayer
O my God, I love you above all things, with my whole heart and soul, because
you are all good and worthy of all my love. I love my neighbor as myself for the love of
you. I forgive all who have injured me and I ask pardon of all whom I have injured.
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