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"Love God, then love everything else for the sake of God."

St. Augustine, courtesy of Sr. Ricca Dimialibot, CCVI (Houston)

"All creation is God crying out to us in love. Everything I see and touch holds the possibility of drawing me more deeply into that love. Follow me, says Jesus, be alive to the possibilities in each encounter. Reach out to restore, to accompany, to forgive. Take up your cross is not an invitation to grit your teeth and endure the arduous. It's a call to stretch out your arms and embrace in love the rough and the uncomfortable, the difficult and - perhaps - even the impossible."

Michelle Francl-Donnay, reflecting on Sunday's Gospel (Luke 14:25-33) in Give Us This Day, a publication of Liturgical Press (www.litpress.org)