Dear friends, regular visitors, RSS'ers, and first-time bloggers:

Unless there is an overwhelming response to dissuade me, I will be discontinuing this weblog after Monday, November 6, 2006. With a great deal of regret, I will no longer post new meditations here.

Why?

The meditations already appear on our regular website. After several futile attempts at activating the comments feature on the weblog, my perception is that reposting the meditations here is simply a duplication of effort. I would like to hear from you if you have any ideas to share.

This is the last call for comments and suggestions, so please speak up now! Send an email as soon as possible to my address in the left-hand column below.

Thanks for your past interest and may God bless you!

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The Catholic Calendar for Sunday, November 5, 2006
Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

Scripture from today's Liturgy of the Word:
Deuteronomy 6:2-6
Psalm 18:2-3, 3-4, 47, 51
Hebrews 7:23-28
Mark 12:28b-34

A reflection on today's Sacred Scripture:

This Sunday’s readings are all about love. They’re so familiar that we’re in great danger of not listening to what Jesus is really saying. So let’s “dig in” to find something in them that we haven’t understood before. Our new Pope, Benedict XVI, has recently done that for us in his very first Encyclical, God is Love. In it, he tells us that love is basically a journey that combines two kinds of love—possessive love (eros) and giving love (agape). Many people consider divine love and human love to be miles apart, both in their nature and in their practice. That’s because we identify divine love with spirit and human love with flesh. We think of one as very objective and disciplined, and the other as warm and passionate. The Pope tells us not to separate them that way. The Old Testament is full of references to God’s love for Israel as warm and passionate. God’s creative love is full of mystery and power, but God’s love for people is similar to human love…therefore perfect love includes both possessive love and giving love.

Isn’t that awesome! Love is a journey in which we gradually progress from imperfect love (loving God without loving our neighbor, or loving our neighbor without loving God), to perfect love which includes both. As the Pope says, we can’t always be giving of ourselves to others. We have to “fill up” on God’s love through prayer, as well as allowing other people to love us.

That’s why Jesus insists that there are two great commandments, and not just one.

If we exclude either one of them, we will not be complete human persons as God intends us to be. This wonderful work of Pope Benedict has given me insights I did not have before. And I know I have some ways to go yet on love’s journey.

Msgr. Paul Whitmore
(pwhitmore29 at yahoo dot com)