Make pleasing God your highest priority. We are made to be God’s hands and feet. We show our praise to God through our actions. What can I do today to please God? God is moved by our loving others. Perhaps we can do something for someone that that person is unable to do for him-or-herself. We can find our purpose in helping others.

Invest in the future. When we put our energy in the past we remember our failures, our hurts, etc., negative memories we can’t change. We are challenged to forgive the people who have hurt us – and move on. Emotional baggage clutters and dampens our zest for life. Travel light. Don’t live in the past. Let it go. It is hard to walk through open doors in life until we close some doors behind us. We can’t let yesterday trap us – we all experience loss, we get hurt, trouble and disappointment come - but none of this has to define our life. God wants better for us – we need to give Him our hurts and pain and also our thanks for the many gifts He has given each of us. Where we are giving with our lives is often more important than where we have been. Dear God - help us to let go of our hurts and be open to receiving your beauty.

Am I praying out-of-tune? Prayer is essential in our lives. Prayer is life-giving. If we use empty words when we pray we become spiritually dull. The many distractions that we fill our lives with dull our ears to God’s speaking to us. Is my life in tune with Jesus‘s message of hope and salvation? Jesus is worth our time and attention. Take time to get to know Jesus – meditate on the readings of each daily Mass and have a conversation with Jesus. We are all worth Jesus‘s blessings.

Jesus is present to us as the Risen Christ. God comes into our world calling us to Him and there will be joy when we enter his Kingdom. Human destiny is inseparable from the destiny of all of creation. We are called to nurture and be stewards of all of creation. We are called to contribute to the healing of our planet. We are urged to do all we can to save our planet – our common home. Each of us can contribute – even in a small way – to heal and preserve our planet. 

Good intentions are not enough – it is necessary to follow through with action. Is my relationship with Jesus self-giving? What are the choices we make in our lives? The choices we make today  may shape our lives for the future. How do we get to heaven – by keeping our promises to God. God wants us to do the Father’s will and to show this in all our thoughts, words and deeds. Make a promise to God that we can fulfill today.

There are undercurrents in life trying to get us elsewhere than where we might want and need to be. They are subtle and try to get us off course. Bad company corrupts good character. Selfishness, envy, anger, etc. are all undercurrents. Sampson in the Bible was morally weak and got off course – he wound up in the hands of his enemies. Life is full of temptations and distractions. We need to look at our habits to see if they are serving us. Being disrespectful in a relationship, showing up to work late on a regular basis, surfing the net on company time, etc. are distractions. We can refocus ourselves and set our minds on things of value. We need to set our mind on God and live a life of integrity. We are not failures if we have sinned - God loves us with an everlasting love. Each day we can start and begin again. Trust in God to get us where we need to be.

Too many people let their circumstances dictate their attitude. But we choose how we see life -  either negative or positive. Instead of looking at the richness in our lives we frequently obsess about the negatives. We need to rearrange our thoughts so we see and appreciate what we have and are not pushed around by negative thinking. We need to feel grateful when we look at God‘s creation – trees, the sky, birds, etc. Changing our routines may possibly give us a renewed perspective, a new outlook on all that we already have. Our attitude affects what we see. Choose today how you were going to see today. Choose to believe that our God is a good and awesome God who loves us with an everlasting love.

Jesus‘s mission is to proclaim the nearness of the Kingdom of God as we help the poor, heal the sick, etc. We can love God because God loved us first. We cannot hate our neighbors and love God. Those who do not love a brother or sister whom they see cannot love God whom they can’t see. God wants us to love others – but this is not always easy. There are psychological barriers between people which make it hard at times to understand others and forgive them. The world we live in tries to seduce us to sin, violence, arrogance, and prejudice of every kind. Faith opens us to the world of God and his gifts. We need to keep God present in our minds and hearts; Faith helps us overcome selfish lives. Faith sees in all people the image of God. It overcomes the negative things of the world by seeing God in all people. Faith and love reinforce each other and give us strength to overcome the evils of the world. Amen.