Love One Another

Dear friends on the journey,

As I write this, I am preparing to visit the Holy Land. On May 13, Fr. Patrick and 41 parishioners departed for a week-long journey, visiting the holiest of places, the land where Jesus was born, lived, died and resurrected. I’m wondering what it will be like to see, feel, taste, and smell all of Israel. Will we encounter Jesus there like the people of his time did?

In today’s gospel, at the Last Supper, Jesus sums up his mission and message with one commandment… love one another as I have loved you. As the apostles journeyed throughout Israel with Jesus, they witnessed firsthand his examples of love and we see it for ourselves in the stories of Jesus’ healing the blind and the lame, touching lepers, welcoming children, forgiving sinners, being with the outcast of society and laying down his life on the cross. This is the mission Jesus charged his apostles and its our mission too as 21st century disciples.
​
So what does that look like for us now?

• ​Gossip never
• Smile at people passing by
• Let the other driver in
• Offer a kind word to a coworker
• Take up the neighbor’s trash cans
• Apologize first
• Affirm your spouse
• Call your aging parents often
• Help the hungry, homeless
• Pray for an enemy
• Think of ourselves less
• Express gratitude to loved ones

• ​Judge never
• Speak kindly to the grocery checker
• Open a door for someone
• Play with the child left out
• Buy coffee for the next person in Starbucks
• Forgive often
• Listen to your kids
• Check in on siblings and friends with a simple text
• Write to the imprisoned
• Visit the sick and elderly
• Think of others more
• Express gratitude to friends

Love one another is a simple statement but not always simple to live. Our discipleship is lifelong, complicated and challenging but when we don’t love well, we have the gift of starting again in the next moment, the next day. Thank God for that! Jesus’ mission field was Israel. Our mission is Ventura County.

This week as I travel through Israel, I will be praying for all of you and your journey of discipleship so that we too may love others as Jesus loves us and that all those who meet us will see and feel Jesus’ love through our actions and words!

Siempre Adelante,
Teresa Runyon
Faith Life Minister

---