Reflection: Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

Reading Henri Nouwen's "Spiritual Direction". He describes an opportunity to meet Blessed Mother Teresa, in which he regales her for ten minutes with his current struggles. When he finally shuts up, she responds simply "Well, when you spend one hour a day adoring your Lord and never do anything which you know is wrong...you will be fine!"

Nouwen relates this story in the context of having answers come from above to our very specific life concerns. As I reflected on it, it occurred to me that Mother Teresa's response is a formulation of the Two Commandments of Christ (Matt 22:34-40): You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind ("spend one hour a day adoring your Lord") and You shall love your neighbor as yourself ("never do anything which you know is wrong").

The lesson is twofold: first, that the answers to our personal problems lie not simply in specific plans of action, but through the moral truth embodied in the simple commandments to love God and to love our neighbor: the answer to our problems is a moral answer...second, that those commandments are not to be followed merely in obedience (as if, because of that obedience, blessings will flow), but because following them is in itself the MEANS to our happiness.