Choose Daily

The WORD today (see http://usccb.org/bible/readings/030217.cfm) reminds me that I should choose daily between life and death. 

We are on the second day of lent. Yesterday was a day of both fasting and abstinence. While it is true that as catholics, we are required to abstain just every Fridays, and to fast only on ash Wednesday and good Friday, it does not mean that's all we should do. We should do more. God expects more. God deserves more. 

Choosing God is a daily decision. 

In the gospel, we are reminded to take up our cross daily. Daily. Not one time big time. Not once a year. Not once a month. Not once a week. Daily. In small decisions. In big decisions. Daily decisions. As they say, we are the summation of the choices we make in life. And it is in those daily choices, daily decisions to follow God, to do his will, do we become children of God. These daily choices make us more like God...or not. 

The first reading reminds us why we should follow him daily. Why we should choose him daily. Choosing him is choosing life. Choosing to reject him is choosing death. Same with the gospel, what would it mean to gain the whole world and lose one's soul? As we choose him daily, we are choosing life - both in this world and in the next. 

May we be reminded that God does not expect us to do things for him just when we want to. Choosing him is an everyday decision. 

Father God,

Thank you for today. Thank you for another day to live. Thank you for another chance to love and serve you. Thank you for the reminder. Lord, sorry for not always choosing you. Sorry for being satisfied with choosing you, loving you, and serving you once in a while or when I feel like it. Help me choose you daily. Help me love you and serve you every day. I choose life eternal with you, and I want to show it through my actions. Amen. 

Blessed day!

In Christ,

-g-

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March 2, 2017
Thursday after Ash Wednesday
Lectionary: 220

Reading 1 Dt 30:15-20

Moses said to the people:
"Today I have set before you
life and prosperity, death and doom.
If you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God,
which I enjoin on you today,
loving him, and walking in his ways,
and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees,
you will live and grow numerous,
and the LORD, your God,
will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy.
If, however, you turn away your hearts and will not listen,
but are led astray and adore and serve other gods,
I tell you now that you will certainly perish;
you will not have a long life
on the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and occupy.
I call heaven and earth today to witness against you:
I have set before you life and death,
the blessing and the curse.
Choose life, then,
that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God,
heeding his voice, and holding fast to him.
For that will mean life for you,
a long life for you to live on the land that the LORD swore
he would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."

Responsorial Psalm Ps 1:1-2, 3, 4 and 6

R. (40:5a) Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
Blessed the man who follows not
the counsel of the wicked
Nor walks in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the company of the insolent,
But delights in the law of the LORD
and meditates on his law day and night.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
He is like a tree
planted near running water,
That yields its fruit in due season,
and whose leaves never fade.
Whatever he does, prospers.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.
Not so the wicked, not so;
they are like chaff which the wind drives away.
For the LORD watches over the way of the just,
but the way of the wicked vanishes.
R. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.

Verse Before the Gospel Mt 4:17

Repent, says the Lord;
the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Gospel Lk 9:22-25

Jesus said to his disciples:
"The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected
by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed and on the third day be raised."

Then he said to all,
"If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself
and take up his cross daily and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
What profit is there for one to gain the whole world
yet lose or forfeit himself?"