Love one another as I have loved you says our Lord. How did our Lord love us? He laid down His life for us so that we may be freed from the bondages of sin. His love was not just spoken but love put into action through sacrifice. To will the good of each one of us. Today let us reflect on how are taking up our cross to follow after our Master?
If someone is in dire need do we simply say “I’ll pray for you?” Throughout the centuries we have many great saints who showed us what it means to have faith in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and to put that faith and love into action. Two whom we have had the privilege to witness first hand for ourselves was Pope St John Paul II and St Theresa of Calcutta. They renounced themselves took up their cross and followed Jesus!
Sweet Jesus mould my unloving heart to be like Yours, so that I may love my brothers and sisters as You love them. Show me the path I must take to follow after You and I will walk it with all my heart. Amen
All the angels and Saints pray for us….
First reading
James 2:14-24,26 ·
A body dies without spirit; faith without good works is not alive
Take the case, my brothers, of someone who has never done a single good act but claims that he has faith. Will that faith save him? If one of the brothers or one of the sisters is in need of clothes and has not enough food to live on, and one of you says to them, ‘I wish you well; keep yourself warm and eat plenty’, without giving them these bare necessities of life, then what good is that? Faith is like that: if good works do not go with it, it is quite dead.
This is the way to talk to people of that kind: ‘You say you have faith and I have good deeds; I will prove to you that I have faith by showing you my good deeds – now you prove to me that you have faith without any good deeds to show. You believe in the one God – that is creditable enough, but the demons have the same belief, and they tremble with fear. Do realise, you senseless man, that faith without good deeds is useless. You surely know that Abraham our father was justified by his deed, because he offered his son Isaac on the altar? There you see it: faith and deeds were working together; his faith became perfect by what he did. This is what scripture really means when it says: Abraham put his faith in God, and this was counted as making him justified; and that is why he was called ‘the friend of God.’
You see now that it is by doing something good, and not only by believing, that a man is justified. A body dies when it is separated from the spirit, and in the same way faith is dead if it is separated from good deeds.
Gospel
Mark 8:34-9:1
Anyone who loses his life for my sake will save it
Jesus called the people and his disciples to him and said:
‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me. For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. What gain, then, is it for a man to win the whole world and ruin his life? And indeed what can a man offer in exchange for his life? For if anyone in this adulterous and sinful generation is ashamed of me and of my words, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’ And he said to them, ‘I tell you solemnly, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power.’
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