Did You Answer The Call or Did It Go To Voicemail?

Brothers and sisters:
I, a prisoner for the Lord,
urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love,
striving to preserve the unity of the Spirit
through the bond of peace:
one Body and one Spirit,
as you were also called to the one hope of your call; one Lord, one faith, one baptism;
one God and Father of all,
who is over all and through all and in all.

Paul urges us to live in a manner worthy of the call we have received.  The question is have we answered that call or have we ignored it and allowed it to go to voicemail?  It seems to me that we live in a world where we do not have much humility - the "I" word is one of the most important in the language and what affects the "I" is much more important than what effects the other.  Do we bear with one another with love and patience through love?  Get caught in a traffic jam and see how everyone is bearing with one another and examine how you feel as that red Audi moves from lane to lane without signaling and in doing so cuts you off.  Unity, peace, and love will most likely be the farthest thing from your mind. 

There is hope because inside of us there is a desire to live in peace.  It is the fondest dream of every human being to live without fear and with fellowship with his neighbor.  Now, in the world today we do have a problem.  The supply of humility, gentleness, and peace is in short supply.  We are more ready to think evil of our brothers and sisters than good. This is very sad, especially if you are feeling that way about fellow Christians because these will be the people that you will be living face to face with when you enter heaven.  

What we are called to do is to take the lead and become a distributor of peace by being humble and gentle and taking into account the fact that the person next to us is a person beloved by God and we may be the only face of God this person will see in his or her life.  We must not waste any opportunity to be the one who enriches another person's life with the gifts that God has given to us.  Sharing peace and joy with another will increase the amount of peace in the world and in your own soul. 

How do we do this?  First of all, we have to remember that the person next to us is one of God's children, a true brother or sister to us.  This can be difficult depending on the circumstances.  Next, we have to reach deep inside and make sure that this person, when he or she is done interacting with us, will feel a little bit of the love of God that is in our heart.  If we do this, we will be faithful to the calling that Paul has reminded us of in today's reading.  It starts with us, not with the other person, that is what we have to remember. 

Pray for the Poor Souls in Purgatory...You know why, don't you?  It is because it is an act of charity that will please Our Lord very much.