“Love the lord your god with all your heart, all your soul, with your entire mind and with all your strength”.
We can learn from this line that Jesus truly believes that love is one of the most important things in life.
The widows offering, Mark12 this story teaches us about true sacrifice and shows us that the widow is a model disciple although her donation is very small
“Two little copper coins, worth about a penny” the sacrifice she has made is great. She has non-materialistic values is kind and this shows Christians today to share but not jus what they have spare but to be really generous. A modern day role model would be Mother Teresa; she often recommended giving to charities and people more needy than ourselves, examples are NSPCC and trocaire at lent.
“Jesus calms the storm” Mark 4. From this story we learn that faith in God is very important, it proves to the disciples that they can trust Jesus and to be a true disciple you must trust his teachings.
“Why are you frightened? Have you still no faith?” This faith leads to more trust in God.
“The Lords supper” is a story to show us the importance of prayer in modern day life, to encourage us to go to mass and receive the body of Christ.
“This is my body which is poured out for many, my body which seals God’s covenant” This tells us that we need to receive the body and blood of Christ to show love to friends and enemies.
“The rich man” Mark 10, this shows us the importance of giving up material possessions , about self- sacrifice and how people can be caught up in money and become greedy, not respecting what they have got.
“How hard it will be for rich people to enter the kingdom of god”
Consider the widows “mite” giving is best measured in relevancy to means the old women at the back ,she gave her two copper pennies which amounted to her total wealth; the rich man gave man times this amount which amounted to a tiny fraction of his total wealth, the question we ask ourselves is who gave more? The answers that we should arrive at are that in relevant terms the old women gave a total donation and not one based on a comfortable sum from her considerable wealth. When we give we should do without consideration of “how much” or what the donation will cost us in real terms. We should give not to be popular and suppress to modern day views or to be seen in a favourable way by others.
People who get caught up in material possessions and materialistic lifestyles forget about love, care and respect. Really they should think about a simple life of prayer and the Eucharist which they receive in mass.
So through the teachings of the gospel we can learn a lot, that life is not just about material goods and how to makes sacrifices. They can do this by going to mass and getting the strength that they need from Christ.
