In the gospel passage Jesus talks about how the end times are going to come, "[b]ut of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." While we wait for the end time, what are we supposed to do? Luckily for us, Jesus has been telling us what to do the past month-and-a-half as we’ve worked our way through the gospel of Mark each Sunday at Mass.
Jesus has not been discreet on what he expects of us. As followers of Christ we are meant to accept the kingdom of God like a child; follow Jesus and not allow anything to stop us from following him; serve others continuously; love the Lord with all our hearts, minds, and souls while also loving our neighbors as we love ourselves; and give everything we have to the Lord. Most of these teachings of Jesus should not be new to us. As active Catholics we should be filling ourselves with the Eucharist each Sunday and springing out into the world with these teachings on the forefront of our minds.
Jesus envisioned a radical new world for us to live in. A world where we love God and neighbor completely. When we love our neighbor, we are also loving God because Christ is all and in all (Col. 3:11) and every single person is made in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:27). An amazing way our community has shown their love of neighbor is through the coat drive happening this weekend for Building Peaceful Bridges. Building Peaceful Bridges is a nonprofit organization supporting people of all faiths whose mission is to foster multicultural relationships by assisting in the integration of refugees into American society and educating communities on the challenges facing refugee populations through their stories. Any and all refugees, no matter their faith, ethnicity, race, age, or gender are our neighbors and it is our Catholic responsibility to love them.
Another part of our responsibility as a Catholic parish is to teach our children about the importance of loving God and neighbor. Our parish fourth graders from both the religious education program and the school will be participating in the fourth grade family Mass this Sunday. Part of the fourth grade family Mass’ service project was to donate new or lightly used winter coats for the coat drive. This has created a wonderful opportunity to teach our students that serving others is an important part of our faith. While our fourth graders are on the forefront donating coats, our RE & school eighth graders will be behind the scenes at each Mass collecting, sorting, and bagging the coats. This coat drive has become a great multi-generational and multi-ministry collaboration.
As we wait for the hour that “only the Father knows,” let us continue to serve everyone we come across with Christlike love each day.