Taste and See: Receive the Word, live the word.

There were two alternative Gospel Acclamations offered in the Lectionary for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, this year, Year A.

Alleluia, alleluia!
Open our heart, O Lord,
to accept the words of your Son.
Alleluia!
cf.Ac16:14

Alleluia, alleluia!
If anyone loves me he will keep my word,
and my Father will love him,
and we shall come to him.
Alleluia!
Jn14:23

Two acclamations for the price of one in today’s Blog!

Both engage us with the call to love, obedient to the word and will of God. But if  obedience is to be a human act,  fully worthy of our dignity as children of God, made in his image and likeness, our obedience needs to be an obedience of the heart, born of love.

We, who are often slow students, may need to learn obedience in other schools first, but in time we need to learn to take God’s word to heart and then from our heart learn how to live faithful to the word that calls us to love.

The icon is the Virgin salus populi romani held in the Basilica of St Mary Major in Rome. It is an image to which Pope Francis returns to pray at key moments in his pontificate.