The Catholic Calendar for Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Tuesday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time

St. Aloysius Gonzaga, religious; "Patron of Youth"

Scripture from today's Liturgy of the Word:
Genesis 13:2,5-18
Psalm 15:2-5
Matthew 7:6,12-14

A reflection on today's Sacred Scripture:

“Do to others whatever you would have them do to you.” (Matt. 7:12)

What a simple and all-encompassing commandment! If only we were able to follow it all the time. Why is it so hard to follow?

The answer has something to do with human imperfection. Jesus knew this. The very next thing he tells us after giving us this commandment, is that the wide and easy road leads to destruction. The narrow road is difficult, but leads to life.

The challenge is to stop and think before we do anything, and test our actions against the commandment. This is something we should be doing in every action whether it is personal, business or just an encounter with a stranger on the street. If we did this each and every time we would be on that narrow road. There may be some business deals we would never do, some conversations we would never have and some little white lies we would never tell. But at the same time there would be the little courtesies we would do for strangers that would make the world a better place.

- Don Claunch, SFO
(dlclaunch at bresnan dot net)

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