Pagninilay ni Sis. Christine Tecson
“Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” –Matthew 10:37
A week ago, we can see bunches of greetings from our social media friends for their fathers as we celebrate the known Fathers’ Day. I too posted one for my two fathers- my biological father and my stepfather. We also greeted our priests who are our spiritual fathers in our faith. There was so much love expressed online. But the question is: how much do we really love them after this day? God commanded us to honor not just our father but also our mother. Exodus 20:12 says, “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.” It means that we should love our parents not just during these days but must be in every day in our lives.
In the gospel today, Jesus emphasized that we should not limit this love towards the people that surrounds us, not just to our parents, not just to our friends and loved ones, but we should also extend this love to our Almighty God. No, not just to extend, but we should love God more than anyone else, more than anything else. He said that whoever loves anyone more than Him is not worthy of Him.
Since my childhood days, my mother let me serve the Church as much as I can and supported me all throughout the days of my service. Whenever I needed some help, she was automatically there to assist me. I never felt hard accomplishing each activity for she was always with me. No wonder that the children and the youth in our place loved her so much. Her support led me to discover the beauty of our Catholic Faith and how each teaching taught us to become more like Jesus. The more I discovered something new, the more I realized I should value my parents too. I love them more than I loved myself and I tried my best to make them proud of me in both my church’s service and in school. But when my mother died, there’s a lot of changes that came into my life. My path of service was changed.
There were many of the activities that I used to join and lead that I wasn’t able to attend anymore. My excitement to serve was changed too. These changes happened maybe because I dwelt my love mostly to my parents.
Today’s gospel reminded me of this misplaced love. Yes, I do love God since before but I had given much love to my parents that when one of them was gone, I got so much affected and loosen my faith. I lose my tracks because I gave so much focus on the people I love than to our God.
Of course, it is good to love the persons that surround us, but it is best to love God more than anyone and anything else. They say, “Put God first in everything you do and God will settle it for you.” And it’s true! Everything will be easy and fine for God will always provide what we need. Jesus said those words not because He wants us not to love them, but because He wants us to know their value even more through Him. Because the more we love God, the more we’ll appreciate all His creations. We are His creations.
Let us make ourselves worthy of Him. Let us take up His cross and follow Him. In other words, let us love Him with all our hearts and mind and follow His commandments. Making ourselves worthy would bear good not just to us but also to the persons whom we love. Following His path wouldn’t be as easy as counting one two three. We might encounter many difficulties especially nowadays as we face this COVID19 Pandemic. But He assures us to have a reward if we love Him and accept His creations. This reward might be the room He prepared for us in heaven. It might also be the happiness we can have and the completeness we can feel as we serve Him.
Love and put God first in everything we do, and the rest will be fine!
AVE MARIA, HAPPY SUNDAY!
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