Ordinary Time, 9th Sunday (A) Today's readings speak about God's moral law. We often resent the moral law because it seems to outlaw just about everything that is "fun". But there are two things we have to keep in mind: 1) God made us. 2) God loves us.

Since God loves us, he wants us to be the best we can possibly be. Since God made us, he knows exactly how we can become the best we can possibly be. This is God's will for us. The moral law is really like a user manual for being a human being. Follow it, and you will become the best you can be.

Lent is just around the corner. It is a great time for us to examine if we have built our lives on the rock of God's will for us, or on the sand of our own whims and desires. There are three traditional Lenten practices.

1. Prayer - makes us more attached to God
2. Fasting (giving up something of value) - makes us less attached to other things
3. Almsgiving (reaching out more generously) - makes us less attached to ourselves

I encourage you to do one of each practice for Lent. What have we built our lives on? Lent is a great time to test our foundations.