First reading Deuteronomy 30:15-20
I set before you today life or death, blessing or curse
Moses said to the people: ‘See, today I set before you life and prosperity, death and disaster. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I enjoin on you today, if you love the Lord your God and follow his ways, if you keep his commandments, his laws, his customs, you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you are entering to make your own. But if your heart strays, if you refuse to listen, if you let yourself be drawn into worshipping other gods and serving them, I tell you today, you will most certainly perish; you will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today: I set before you life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life, then, so that you and your descendants may live, in the love of the Lord your God, obeying his voice, clinging to him; for in this your life consists, and on this depends your long stay in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob he would give them.’
Responsorial Psalm 1:1-4,6
Happy the man who has placed his trust in the Lord.
Happy indeed is the man
who follows not the counsel of the wicked;
nor lingers in the way of sinners
nor sits in the company of scorners,
but whose delight is the law of the Lord
and who ponders his law day and night.
He is like a tree that is planted
beside the flowing waters,
that yields its fruit in due season
and whose leaves shall never fade;
and all that he does shall prosper.
Not so are the wicked, not so!
For they like winnowed chaff
shall be driven away by the wind:
for the Lord guards the way of the just
but the way of the wicked leads to doom.
Gospel Luke 9:22-25
Whoever loses his life for my sake will save it
Jesus said to his disciples:
‘The Son of Man is destined to suffer grievously, to be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and to be put to death, and to be raised up on the third day.’
Then to all he said:
‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross every day and follow me. For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, that man will save it. What gain, then, is it for a man to have won the whole world and to have lost or ruined his very self?’
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Choose life by choosing love
At the start of Lent, God, through Moses in the 1st reading, calls us to “Choose life”. To choose life is to choose love, i.e. to love God and love those whom He places in our lives. When we decide to walk the path of love, we must ready ourselves to renounce ourselves by letting go of certain values and attitudes incompatible with the gospel values.
In this time of prayer, let us look at our lives and see the attachments or habits we might have that are not helping us to live a life that flows from love. One obstacle that might prevent us from taking the path of self-denial is selfishness, which drives us to pursue our own interests regardless of others. Today, Jesus calls us to follow Him by living a life of love that chooses to open to others and work for their good.
Reflective question:
What is the loving thing that Jesus is asking me to do today?
Acknowledgment: Reflections are based on “Prayer for Living: The Word of God for Daily Prayer Year A” by Sr Sandra Seow FMVD.
