WHAT ARE MY 

LIFE PRINCIPLES AND 

BASIC  SAYINGS?

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “What Are My Life Principles and Basic Sayings?”

Today’s 2 readings have many prayer leads for personal prayer - as well as bringing up life principles and inner sayings.

                       Colossians 3: 12-17

                       Luke 6:27-38

Suggestion: read today’s readings and let what’s being said sink into your mind and soul. 

Then see which saying, which word, keeps bopping up to the top of our mind from the bottom of our soul, from out of our depths.

Hidden in the first reading is an excellent suggestion: “Let the word of Christ, rich as it is, dwell in you.”

We might add or ask: Which word? Which sentence of Christ, should we let dwell in us?

Once more I would suggest spending some time simply pouring these words into our soul through our eyes and our ear and into one's mind, into one's soul, into one's depths.

TODAY’S GOSPEL AND ALL 4 GOSPELS

All 4 gospels, but especially today’s gospel which gives part of Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Mount, have great words of Christ to dwell on.

We might call them one liners. We might call it bumper sticker theology. Yet, sometimes it only takes a word or a few words for something someone says to us for a new word  to begin to dwell within us.

It can be a positive or a negative word!

If it’s a hurt or an attack, it might act like a poison or an acid that eats at the inside of our mind and feelings.  If it’s a compliment, it might change our attitude towards ourself. It might help heal us.

TWO EXAMPLES

Augustine, whose feast we celebrated at the end of last month, kept hearing the words, “Take and read. Take and read.” So he took and read the Letter of Paul to the Romans and read 13:13-14.

Augustine then turned over the words of Paul in his mind and changed.

Before that he kept on saying two sentences: “I can’t do it. How can you give up sex?” That’s the first tape recording. The second was, “Well, if these young people can be chaste, why can’t I do it as well.”

Haven’t we all had someone say to us, “You know something you said to me ten years ago, really helped me. I never forgot it. Thank you.”

PROVERBS: LIFE PRINCIPLES, ETC.

If it’s a positive suggestion, a saying, a proverb, it can become part of our basic life principles.

Have you ever noticed that some people clearly have life principles that they go by? You know this because you often hear them quote these principles as they face a situation in which they are called upon to act.

For example, “A stitch in time saves 9.” “Buy cheap, buy twice.”  “People who live in a glass house shouldn’t throw rocks.”

EXAMPLES FROM TODAY’S GOSPEL

How many times have we heard people say,

“Turn the other cheek.”

“Do to others what you would have them do to you.”

“Do not judge, and you won’t be judged.”

“Do not condemn and you won’t be condemned.”

“The measure you measure with will be measured back to you.”

CONCLUSION

My suggestion is you take both readings to prayer and see what saying pops to the surface. Make it your own. Own it. Then live it. Then send out old words, unwholesome words to get lost, to become homeless - from from your mind.