The Heart of the Matter

July 21: Monday of Week 16 of Ordinary Time, Year A-II:

Micah 6:1-4, 6-8; Psalm 50:5-6, 8-9, 16-17, 21, 23; Matthew 12:38-42

Thoughts to help us surrender to Jesus expressing himself through us in ministry.

“You have been told what is good.” Micah 6:8

God likes to simplify things. Ten Commandments, that Jesus condensed into two: loving God and neighbor (Matthew 37-39). One desire: “Strive first for the kingdom of God... and all these things will be given to you” (Matthew 6:33). One essential preoccupation: “There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part” (Luke 10:42). And now a simple formula for pleasing God: “Only to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”

John brought it down to love: “God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them” (1John 4:16).

Ministry combines all of these. It is the supreme love of neighbor, and it is the expression of God’s love experienced, absorbed in prayer, and given.

It must be characterized by mercy and humility to be authentic.

It seeks to make every encounter with others a lifegiving experience of the love, joy and peace (“fruit of the Spirit,” Galatians 5:22) that will be made perfect in the Kingdom, when all sit down together at the “wedding banquet of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:9).

Ministry is simply giving expression to the heart of Christ, inspired by awareness of the expression Jesus gave when he offered his body on the cross.

PRAY: “Lord, give yourself with me, give yourself in me, give yourself through me.”

PRACTICE: Speak and act from the heart.