For the first fifteen years of my life, I grew up in a very traditional parish of the Anglican Church of Canada. While I never regret my choice to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church, there are still aspects of the liturgy that I miss very dearly. One of these was the act of contrition at the beginning of the service. The priest would face the congregation and declare: \u201cHear, O Israel! The LORD thy God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind and with all thy strength. This is the first and greatest commandment, and the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.\u201d The congregation would then sing in reply: \u201cLord, have mercy upon us, and write both these thy laws in our hearts, we beseech Thee.\u201d A very good reminder, every Sunday, of what matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0We have no other work on this earth, other than to love the Lord with every ounce of our being, with everything that we have; and to love those around us with a deep and genuine concern.\u00a0 These are the fundamentals, the bare bones of our lives \u2014 for what are vocation, career, friendship, romance, worship, liturgy, almsgiving, prayer\u2026 what is our life other than opportunities to love God with our whole hearts, and our neighbour as ourselves?\u00a0 We must remember too \u2014 Jesus heightens this second commandment further at the Last Supper:\u00a0 \u201cA new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another\u201d (John 13:34).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0\u00a0And yet, how often we forget this!\u00a0 In our lives, we become very very busy.\u00a0 We drone on and on, chanting the litanies of our to-do lists.\u00a0 There is the car insurance to be renewed, the altar servers to schedule for Mass, the dishes from lunch soaking in the sink, and the ones from last night still in the dishwasher, family and friends we wish we had the time to call, and groceries to be bought before the store closes, not to mention the unending list of things to do at work\u2026\u00a0 We have so many daily troubles inscribed upon our minds \u2014 and yet what does God say?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cHear, O Israel!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lord, have mercy upon us, and write these your greatest commandments in our hearts.\u00a0 Let us remember to put first things first, that everything we do is for the love of you and the love of our neighbour.\u00a0 Everything else hangs on this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Solomon Ip<\/strong> \u2013 St. Joseph Seminary, Edmonton, Alberta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fot. Jonathan Borba Azety\/Unsplash.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2788,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,17,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-strona-glowna-najnowsze","category-strona-glowna-slider"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n