A Love that Endures Moves

November 8, Tuesday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time
Ti 2:1-8, 11-14 and Luke 17:7-10

With the so many voices that we hear, it has become even more difficult to discern which voice is leading us to the Lord. A lot of times, we encounter people and circumstances that seem to give us the better option - the better way, that which is easier, more convenient and more pleasing to the senses.

Today’s first reading gives us direct instructions how we should conduct ourselves. Any voice therefore that sounds otherwise, no matter how pleasing it may seem, is not the voice that we should listen to. We are being directly instructed to ‘reject godless ways and worldly desires’. But how?

First is to check our tempers such that we act in dignified and self-controlled ways. Such is only possible with endurance, something that sounds unpleasing or foreign these days. The world tells us to take the easy way – what with all the technologies and values being promoted in all social media! But the Lord has shown us the glory that comes with endurance.

Second is to check our tongues, what comes out of our mouths. While the world provides us with every means to express and speak what we want and how we want to, our reading reminds us to be reverent and chaste and model such values to children.

For all these, there is but one motive. The Gospel tells us that we do not do what we do out of obligation but always as act of love. We do not oblige as commanded, not out of compliance but always motivated and moved by the grace of God. May we always have that eagerness to listen to God’s voice and do what is good.