We’ve been reading from the Letter to the Hebrews as the first reading at Mass. In today’s passage, we are told that “[W]e must consider how to rouse one another to love and good works. We should not stay away from our assembly, as is the custom of some, but encourage one another.”
It is good to remind ourselves that we are part of a community. That our faith as Catholics is never just about me and God, but that we live our lives in communion with the living Body of Christ. And that implies that we have obligations beyond ourselves, indeed beyond those within our closest circles of families and friends.
Part of that obligation is the obligation to rouse and encourage one another. This is not an invitation to be on the lookout for every failing of those we come in contact with so that we can point out their imperfections to them. (In St. Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus points out that we tend to be a lot better at seeing the mote in our neighbor’s eye than the beam in our own.) Rather, it is an invitation to help bring out the best in each other, to help build up the Body of Christ. So we should be on the lookout for opportunities to “rouse one another to love and good works.”
Creo en Dios! 