Today's Thoughts...

Today’s Thoughts: A couple of things stand out for me in our readings today. In the Book of Deuteronomy (6:5) we hear – “Therefore, you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.” The journey of faith is about going all in. Faith is not halfway. Faith is not the minimum. Faith is our whole, heart, soul and strength.
 
Now this way of living life is not easy. I believe as human beings we are prone at times to do the minimum. What can we do to get by? What is the least we can do and still get into heaven? Take the commandment – Keep Holy the Lord’s Day. When that commandment was given to us it meant the whole day. Over the centuries we have reduced it and reduced it. Today, at times, some Catholics look to get to mass before the Gospel is read and hang around until communion begins. The minimum. However, I have never found that in print. Keeping the Lord’s Day Holy, Loving our Mother and Father, Loving God, and all the other commandments are about our whole heart, our whole soul and our whole strength as the Book of Deuteronomy tells us today.
 
Faith is about going all in, loving with everything we have. In our Gospel today, we see what happens when we don’t apply the challenge of Deuteronomy. Jesus becomes exasperated with the people and his disciples because of their lack of faith. The disciples are still not all in. They are still hedging their bets with Jesus and thus they struggled driving out the demon from the young boy.
 
Faith demands a commitment. We cannot be lukewarm, we cannot do just the minimum. Faith can be as small as a mustard seed, but we need to be all in with our whole heart, our whole soul and all of our strength.
 
Have a great Saturday everyone.