November 3, 2024: 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time

God is God and He is the source of everything.  He declared Himself to be God alone to the people of Israel when He delivered them from Egypt and brought them to the Promised Land.  To be in a relationship with Him, God commanded them to love Him with all their heart, mind, and strength, as He reveals Himself in love.

Jesus Christ came to show us the full extent of God's love by offering Himself for us so we could be restored to a right relationship with God.

Now, we love to acknowledge the reality of God's existence and presence in our lives, and to reflect what God has done for us.  We love the unseen God by loving our neighbors.

Since God is the source of everything, all we do is a means to more fully realize God's presence in our lives and in our world.

One great example of someone who lived the love of God was St. Martin de Porres, whose feast day is today.  Because he was a mixed-race person, he faced much discrimination.  Yet he sought to grow in divine character and faced discrimination with character revealing God's presence.  Indeed, he made God more real in the world by facing hatred with divine love.