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ACCEPT GOOD SHEPHERD’S INVITATION TO FOLLOW HIM

Based on Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48; 1 Jn 4:7-10; Jn 15:9-17

Today’s readings continue to echo God’s love for us as we have been hearing the past few Sundays.

In the Gospel, Jesus tells us how much he loves us, just as much as his Father loves him. He calls us his friends and invites us to share his love with others.

One example of a true friend or follower of Jesus is Blessed Mother Teresa, who started the Missionaries of Charity order of sisters and worked with the “poorest of the poor” in India. She died in 1997, but the sisters of her order continue the work she started.

Blessed Mother Teresa’s words about God’s love and how we must share it remain. She said we need:

To pray: “Love to be true has to begin with God in prayer. If we pray we will be able to love and if we love, we will be able to serve. Let us pray for each other, for this is the way to love one another.” 

To smile: “We can never know how much good a simple smile can do.”

To love: “Start by making your own home a place where peace, happiness and love abound, through your love for each member of your family and for your neighbor.”

To forgive: “Once you know you have hurt someone, be the first to say sorry. We cannot forgive unless we know that we need forgiveness, and forgiveness is the beginning of love.”

To share: “Even if you write a letter for a blind man, or you just sit and listen to someone, or you take the mail for him, or you visit somebody or bring a flower to somebody, or wash clothes for somebody or clean the house – small things, but God sees everything great.”

To help: “To him, each one of us is very special, each one a unique creation.

We are all sisters and brothers in Jesus Christ. We must work for all those who suffer and hear Our Lord say, ‘I was a refugee and you gave me a home.’”

Each of us has special work to do for Jesus. He says to us, “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit. This I command you: Love one another as I love you.”