The Call To Love

Do you feel like the year is racing towards its conclusion and that the end of 2026 is just a couple of weeks away. It is still 10 weeks till Christmas, but it seems so much closer. Our Liturgy team are well into planning the Advent and Christmas season, schools are working hard to help our children achieve in their final exams and assessments. In my world of construction, suppliers are already telling us it is impossible to source that product or complete that piece of work before the Christmas close down as they eye that precious Christmas holiday. The Christmas stock has arrived in the shops and any minute now ‘Snoopy’s Christmas’ will be playing in a store near you.

Are we ready for the year to end? I am certainly not. Another year older! Have I achieved what I need to? Am I ready to look forward to what 2027 might bring?

If the blood pressure starts to rise with the thought of another year ending, then I think this weekend’s readings bring everything into perspective. In today’s gospel Jesus is tested by the Pharisees, but his response is clear and simple: ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind’. The second part is a bit harder. ‘You must love your neighbour as yourself.’ The call to us, his followers, is to put aside worldly things that occupy our minds, like work and our secular world and look honestly at our relationships. If we love God with all our heart and all our mind, then we cannot but love our neighbour. Let us look at our actions and words towards others and to quote a popular business phrase ‘lift our game’. May the remainder of 2026 see our community truly show we love our neighbours as we prepare our hearts and minds for the arrival of the Baby Jesus at Christmas.

Jane Kelly