Thirty-First Monday of Ordinary Time

When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors, in case they may invite you back and you have repayment. Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.

We should make it a point to do everything we can for those who are in need. For the poor, we should enrich their lives with acts of mercy and love. For the crippled and lame, we should do what we can to help them succeed. We should give a hand to those who need it and go the extra mile for those who need someone to walk with them on their journeys. Our family and friends are important, but we should also remember that Jesus made others the focus of his life's mission and we are called to do the same.

In what ways are we enriching the lives of the poor and helping those in need? What can we do to invite others into our lives and help them? How can we make others the focus of our lives?

O Lord, may we always imitate you in how we treat others.

Amen.