Mtr Taylor Devine

Dear Friend,
Our Office Gospel for today encapsulates much of what I've been hearing in the scripture this week - "In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets."

It's one of these phrases that we've heard so many times that maybe we lose some of the poetic oomph - but what a profound statement - "for this is the law and the prophets." It's the hard and wonderful truth that communities have been confronted with throughout the Bible. It reminds me of one of my favorite sayings of the Desert Mothers and Fathers, Amma Syncletica: "love of God and neighbor are the basis of all salvation." I know at first reading this can feel daunting, and it is.

I hear the calling in the Gospel as a frightful one - figuring out how to do to others as you would have them do to you, but also a calling that only the Lord of Love is up for, and for which only he could equip us. This phrasing to me begs for the peace and grace of Jesus, because we know in what rough shape we'd be in if it were just up to us. We follow the incarnated One who teaches us how to love and saves us from ourselves, who fulfills the law and the prophets and begs us join him in that love.

In Christ,
Mtr Taylor