This Is a Life Worth Living

Brothers and Sisters,

Today’s readings challenge us to be totally committed to Jesus first, any other relationships must be rooted here. In Him, other relationships find meaning. We must choose between Him and everything else – he is not an equal good to any other good thing. We can’t compromise on this.

Commitment to him first is the only kind of life worth living. Look at those committed to themselves and see if they inspire you. They bring themselves and others around them to ruin because they share belief in the lie that they are worth everything. By hoarding, their lives become less valuable. It is in spending life for God and others that we find a life worth living. To live generously, we become full of spirit, life giving, rich in self-discovery as we grow through our own gifts and the gifts of others.

Giving a gift to help a prophet, as in the first reading, wins the couple a great reward – the continuance of their family. The wife and husband literally became life giving and full of spirit by being a gift to Elisha the prophet. As they gave what they could to their visitor, they acted as models to us. Out of their commitment to the Lord and his servant, they radiated a warm love of God and neighbor. In choosing God first, other gifts came to them. May we follow their example to discover a life worth living.

Gratefully,

Fr. Joe Schwab OFM