A tale of God’s law and the act of love

A woman was at the casino and was losing at the roulette wheel. When she was down to her last $10, she asked the fellow next to her for a good number.

He suggested, “Why don’t you play your age?’ The woman appeared to agree and put her money on the table.

The next thing the fellow who had given her the advice saw was a great commotion, as the woman fainted and fell to the floor.

The man rushed over to her and asked the attendant, “Did she win?”

The attendant said, “No, she put $10 on 29 and 49 came in.”

As we celebrate Labor Day this weekend and the beginning of a new school year, we need to pay extra attention to our readings and what they are challenging us to be and to do.

The first two readings show us how our behavior shows others what kind of a person we really are. Jesus tries to teach us in the Gospel the importance of what we have in our hearts. He lets the Pharisees know they are hypocrites for too much concentrating on the external law and clean hands and not acting on having clean hearts. St. James in the second reading exhorts his listeners and readers to put their beliefs into action.

We have been taught and told that God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God and God abides in Him. These few words are at the heart of our Christian faith and our action. Our life should be described as honestly both personally and in a community-way, living the values of love for God and Neighbor. We learn more about another person by watching what they do than by listening to what they say.

St. James states, “Be doers of the word and not hearers only.” and care for the most vulnerable among you. Putting faith into action is the real law and the real act of love. Avoid hypocrisy and live out the spirit of your faith in what you are and do. As Catholics, we are fortunate to have a God who comes to us in the Eucharist, lives and moves among us and is revealed to others as we strive to do His law of love from the heart.

Jesus does not look for lip service, but for heart-toheart love for all. Deeds speak for themselves. One of the key characteristics of successful people is how they view failure.

Successful people rarely see failure as fatal; they see it as feedback. When they don’t get the desired results, they learn from the experience and try, try again. The most successful authors, inventors, saints, sport heroes and heroines have developed the ability to deal with massive amounts of rejection.

High achievers rarely think of failure as an end in itself. Instead, they believe in delayed success. A loser says, “I can’t do it,” while a winner says, “I can’t do it yet!”