LOVE OR MONEY?

It is always a little amazing when the secular calendar collides with the liturgical calendar and the readings of the day. As, we celebrate Valentine’s Day, people young and old will celebrate in a loving way, as it should be!

Yet, our readings ask us to go the extra mile in love, as we are called as Christ bearers to reach out to the disfigured and not look the other way but accept in a loving way all people and especially marginalized people. Both the first reading from Leviticus and the Gospel of Mark deal with the illness of leprosy. In Moses’s day leprosy was a sign of sinfulness and separation from God and others. It was the same in Jesus’ time, but he reached out and touched the leper. The leper is not separated from God, and nothing is a barrier to Jesus’ healing touch, as Son of God and Son of Man.

As members of the Body of Christ and called Christians, we are now called and challenged to break through barriers for others. Listening to our second reading from St. Paul, we need to pray and work at being Paul’s words, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” We need to pray and decide on how we will use the coming Season of Lent that begins on Wednesday to truly have the strength and courage to be Christ like. Jesus calls us to love God with all our heart, all our soul and all our mind, and all our strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves. This Valentine’s Day and during Lent, we must commit ourselves to nurturing that love for God and for Neighbor.

Love is a daily challenge to reach outside ourselves and to be both open to receiving and giving love to all others. It is only in this way of praying, working, acting, and speaking with sincerity, trust and real love from mind and heart that we can know peace and real love in action. Take some time to think and then to act in even little ways to ignite faith, hope and real love, so that God can prevail in our world. The real point of Lent is to give God and neighbor this honest, heart-to-heart love.

The love of money has been the downfall of many people. As a parish, we will aim during Lent to fulfill the Archbishop’s Annual Appeal requests, that aid so many. Most of you have received a letter from that office — the appeal, signed by me to make this our

Lenten Money gift for love of God and Neighbor.

This appeal for years has done so much to aid our faith in the Archdiocese and our local charitable needs, and I ask you again to be generous to it. When in doubt about this love action, think of this old story.

A man worked all his life and saved much money and was a real miser. Just before he died, he demanded that his wife put all his money in his casket with him when he was buried.

As a good wife, she promised to do it. As the casket was being closed, she slipped a white envelope into his hands in his casket and turned away.

A close friend asked her what she had placed in the envelope, as the friend knew of the husband’s request. The wife responded, “I cannot break my word. I wrote him a check.”