Our Lady Of Perpetual Help

Clergy Page

Reflection - Week of October 25

Question of the Week:

How can I give of myself this week and to whom?

     We are called to love God because God loves us. God loves us unconditionally and has given us all the truly important things that we possess: life, forgiveness, redemption, and the promise of eternal life. We are called to love others because we are all God’s children. So loving others is simply loving God’s children. As we would expect people who love us to treat our children with love, so too would God expect us to treat God’s other children with love. Moreover, as God has shown us that to love others is to give of oneself to others, God calls us to give of ourselves to our neighbor. To give of ourselves to others is to imitate God, which is a tangible way to love God in return.

     Saint Paul tells the early Christian community in Thessalonica how proud he is of them because they “became imitators of us and of the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 1:6). In so doing they “became a model for all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia,” that is, the surrounding provinces (1:7). This is what we are called to do now. As a parish, we can imitate the love of Jesus Christ. In so doing, we can be a model for other parishes and the rest of the diocese for the ways in which we put that love into action.