To Lift Up the Soul

To lift up the soul…think about this for a moment. Think about lifting your soul. Where would you lift it?

For us Christians, we lift our souls up to God. We look to Jesus to show us how to bear our crosses. We walk listening to God through the prophets and listening to Him in Jesus through the apostles in our biblical history. We lift up our souls in obedience to The Commandments, to The Beatitudes of life.

Jesus himself says in today’s readings that He did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it Matthew 5:17-19. But the sad reality is that many find the law difficult to live by. Laws are here to protect us from ourselves and to protect others, but when we turn away from law we risk damaging ourselves and those around us. The Commandments turn us back to God keeping our focus on Him. They also are meant to teach us how to Love One Another as Christ had shown His love for us.

Knowing that Christ is living in us and amongst us today in ourselves and in others we should strive to clean out our temples. Looking to The Commandments and The Beatitudes for guidance, allowing the soul to be changed and filled, as it is written in John 14:23 “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.”

I pray that today we sit and visit The Commandments in Exodus 20:1-17 and The Beatitudes in Matthew 5:1-12 to remind us of the love God has for us, in wanting us to remain in HIM and love our neighbor as ourselves. During this Lenten season May the Father and The Son live in us fully, alive in the wisdom of The Holy Spirit in Communion with Him in the Sacraments of Reconciliation and The Eucharist. AMEN