Loving Is Knowing

July 6: Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time:

Zechariah 9:9-10; Psalm 145:1-2, 8-11, 13-14; Romans 8:9,11-13; Matthew 11:25-30

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

Loving Is Knowing

“Learn from me… and you will find rest.” Matthew 11:29

Before all else, Jesus lived and died to make the Father known and loved: “Hallowed be thy name!”

I came that they may have life… And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God… (John 10:10; 17:3).

God is misunderstood. Many don’t believe he is “merciful… good and compassionate toward all...” And in his deepest being, God is a mystery only God can fully understand: “No one knows the Father except the Son.” By the gift of divine light, however, the Father can be known by “anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.” This is the mystery of “faith,” the gift of sharing in the Son’s own divine act of knowing.

In Jesus the mystery of God is “translated” into human words and actions. Jesus said, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). And we “know God’s love for us by this, that Jesus laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.”

We don’t really know God until we experience his life in us by loving one another: “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love (see 1John 3:16; 4:8).

As “priests in the Priest” and “victims in the Victim,” we “lay down our lives for one another” in ministry.

PRAY: “Lord, teach me to love.”

PRACTICE: Show love to everyone you meet.