Each Sunday, I will try to link to a reflection on the Sunday readings that I find inspiration.  This week, the prize goes to Father Roger Vermalen Karban, pastor of Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish in Renault, Illinois, primarily because he included a reference to Teilhard de Chardin:-)

“Teilhard de Chardin once reminded us, “The only thing in this universe which never changes is change.” As followers of the risen Jesus, are we constantly training ourselves to be open and observant enough to know when change is needed to bring about the loving new world for which Jesus died?”

Runners-up (only because there was no Teilhard reference), go to the Irish Jesuits who had a wonderful call to live the agape love called for in the Gospel:

“It is through this constant love-centred interaction among each other that the “new earth, the new heaven and the new Jerusalem” can begin to come into existence. It is in our hands. And we have a perfect example in Jesus our Lord.

As disciples of Jesus, imbued with his message of agape, loving in the way that he loved us, we are called to do the same – to give support to our fellow disciples and to share our faith and our love with as many people as possible.

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It is precisely by our being an agape-filled people that God will come into people’s lives in this way. It is through this constant love-centred interaction among each other that the “new earth, the new heaven and the new Jerusalem” can begin to come into existence – not at some unknown future time and in some other place but here and now. Today. It is in our hands. All we have to do is follow the lead of the Jesus the Lord.”

and to my favorite Professor, Deacon, Climate Change Prophet, David Backes who ties the heroic efforts of rescuers in the Boston and Texas tragedies to the love of Christ:

[Jesus] repeats a couple of more times his directive to love one another. He tells them—and each one of us today—that this is the only way we can truly be in a healthy relationship to him. He goes on to say that he is like a vine, and we are like branches. To try to live as though we are separate from him is to choose death. Love is what grafts our branches to his vine. And Jesus tells the apostles—and us—that his reason for saying all this—for putting such emphasis on the commandment of love—is so that his joy may be in us, and our joy may be complete.”