Weekly Guidelines
Read this week's guidelines and be nourished as you journey with our Community in Cebu.
Love as I have loved youMay 13-19, 2019 General Theme: Your Life is for Loving General Objective: -To love with the love of Christ is vital in order to live. -To convince the people that to love is to plant God’s love in all through the Word and this is the deepest and most effective way of responding to the cry of Jesus in the suffering of the world. -To be convinced that the concrete way to live as Verbum Dei is to evangelize. Objective of the week: -To be able to love like Christ
INTRODUCTION
What makes your life beautiful, meaningful, and happy is love; and it’s true that when we are in love, it moves us to do things that we cannot do. Like Saint Paul, love made him smile amidst rejection, gave him reasons to survive, and gave meaning in everything that he was doing.“I may have the gift of inspired preaching; I may have all knowledge and understand all secrets; I may have all the faith needed to move mountains—but if I have no love, I am nothing.” (1 Cor 13:2) We too can find meaning in life when we love; to love is our real identity since we were created by love. God created our hearts like His, so we have the same capacity to love like His Son, Jesus. And our loving shouldn’t be limited to whatever kind of love, the human love. Jesus knew our capacity to love, and for this reason he gave us the commandment, “love your neighbor as you love yourself.” (Gal 5:14) Every day we seek for love from our family, friends, or even romantically. Every day, too, we are not satisfied and see the inadequacy of their love for us. It is because their love, our love, has limitations and at the end we feel hurt and disappointed. We thought, when we love we have shown the perfect love and have given everything we have. No doubt, we know how to love in a way the other, but are we loving like Christ? Christ’s love is the perfect love that exists. Christ’s love is not limited; it is matured. To love like Christ is to grow in maturity, in loving sacrificially, universally, and selflessly. Why do we have to love like Christ? Because we are loved limitlessly by Christ. MONDAY LOVING LIKE CHRIST IS TO HELP OTHERS TO LIVE John 8:51-59 Jesus answered, “If I were to honor myself, that honor would be worth nothing. The one who honors me is my Father—the very one you say is your God. You have never known him, but I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you. But I do know him, and I obey his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see the time of my coming; he saw it and was glad.” They said to him, “You are not even fifty years old—and you have seen Abraham?” “I am telling you the truth,” Jesus replied. “Before Abraham was born, ‘I Am’.”Then they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and left the Temple. Jesus wants to teach us that to love like him is to listen and to have faith in his words, and obeying his teachings that makes us alive and free. In this way we become more open to his new way of loving. What kind of love am I showing to the people around me? Is my way of loving, giving life and hope to others? TUESDAY LOVING LIKE CHRIST IS THE WAY TO PERFECT LOVE 1 Cor 13:4-8 Love is patient and kind; it is not jealous or conceited or proud; love is not ill-mannered or selfish or irritable; love does not keep a record of wrongs; love is not happy with evil, but is happy with the truth. Love never gives up; and its faith, hope, and patience never fail.Love is eternal. There are inspired messages, but they are temporary; there are gifts of speaking in strange tongues, but they will cease; there is knowledge, but it will pass. We all know that our capacity to love is very limited, very human. It’s very hard for human love to mature and grow because of selfishness and pride. But Jesus showed the perfect way to love, and imitating his way of loving is our fulfillment to growth and maturity in love. How is my capacity to love? Do I show maturity in loving every day? WEDNESDAY LOVING LIKE CHRIST GIVES COMPLETE JOY WITHIN John 15:9-17 I love you just as the Father loves me; remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My commandment is this: love one another, just as I love you. The greatest love you can have for your friends is to give your life for them. And you are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because servants do not know what their master is doing. Instead, I call you friends, because I have told you everything I heard from my Father. You did not choose me; I chose you and appointed you to go and bear much fruit, the kind of fruit that endures. And so the Father will give you whatever you ask of him in my name. This, then, is what I command you: love one another. Jesus wants us to understand that loving like him is not just a command, but a special call to bear fruit—a complete joy that makes us to be alive within and gives us reason to continue living a meaningful life. To remain in his love is to stay connected through his words so that we will have the complete joy within. Are my choices in life giving me complete joy? How am I to share this joy to others? THURSDAY LOVING LIKE CHRIST IS A SACRIFICIAL LOVE 1 John 3:14-16 We know that we have left death and come over into life; we know it because we love others. Those who do not love are still under the power of death. Those who hate others are murderers, and you know that murderers do not have eternal life in them. This is how we know what love is: Christ gave his life for us. We too, then, ought to give our lives for others! Jesus’ death on the cross is the greatest expression of love one can ever do. He proved that each one is worth dying for in spite of our sins. He chose to sacrifice his life in order for us to have life and live. What are we willing to sacrifice for the sake of loving like Christ? FRIDAY LOVING LIKE CHRIST IS A UNIVERSAL LOVE 1 John 4:9-11 And God showed his love for us by sending his only Son into the world, so that we might have life through him. This is what love is: it is not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the means by which our sins are forgiven. Dear friends, if this is how God loved us, then we should love one another. It was God who loved us first. Though he knew how cruel, selfish, and wicked we may be, God still came down, through his Son. Jesus in calling the outcast and sinners to be his disciples, is God's way of showing us that his love is universal, unconditional, and unchangeable. Jesus wants to teach us that each one is a child of God and deserves seventy-seven times seven chances. Jesus welcomed everyone, including us to embrace, to empower, and to forgive. How about us, who do we welcome and welcomed back into our lives? SATURDAY LOVING LIKE CHRIST IS A SELFLESS RESPONSE John 6:5-11 When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.Philip answered him, “It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down (about five thousand men were there). Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish. This little boy who selflessly offered his five loaves and two fishes for people to be fed is a concrete example of loving like Christ. This act of love showed a great faith to what Jesus can do with our poverty. This is a reminder that only the love of Christ, through his words, can fill the void and cure the hunger within and not the things of this world. What am I willing to share with others selflessly? 5th SUNDAY of EASTER 1st Reading – Acts 14:21-27 Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 145:8-13 2nd Reading – Rev 21:1-5a Gospel – John 13:31-35 |
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