{"id":60,"date":"2026-10-19T02:08:54","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T02:08:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.menofstjoseph.com\/blog\/?p=60"},"modified":"2026-10-15T18:11:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T18:11:12","slug":"october-25-2026-reflection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.menofstjoseph.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/19\/october-25-2026-reflection\/","title":{"rendered":"October 25, 2026 Reflection"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Matthew 22:34-40<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is great really that\u2026great?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Great to see you! Great job! That was great! You did great!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a child, I remember playing at my piano recital and my grandmother saying. \u201cThat was fine.\u201d And I truly know her \u201cfine\u201d was high praise and a wonderful compliment. But it gets lost in the mix of all things great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, let\u2019s look at the history of great. When looking back to Old English and Proto Germanic Roots and Proto Indio European ancestry, the word is associated with something large or massive. The Great Wall of China. The Great Lakes. The Great Barrier Reef. You get the point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now any Tom, Dick or Harry can somehow be great. Everything is great. Everyone is great. It\u2019s all great! It\u2019s become kind of a filler in the conversation \u2013 losing its luster, its importance \u2013 its greatness. The world is imperfect and in the chase for the quick search for perfection or something true, we\u2019ve often tagged yet another thing or person as \u201cgreat.\u201d And in this imperfect world where everyone is wanting to be great, we often find people attempting to knock others off their pedestal of greatness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This type of act goes back thousands of years. Take for instance the gospel for this week. The Pharisees are working on tempting Jesus and trying to knock Him down a peg or two. After Jesus told them know whatever is Caesar\u2019s give to Caesar and what is God\u2019s, give to God, <\/em>Jesus was then asked which of the commandments is the GREATEST of all commandments. I think they thought they had Jesus stumped on this one. (C\u2019mon man!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The world\u2019s flaws make everything more complicated than they need to be. But with Jesus, He cut right through it to the way, the truth and the life we should be leading through the GREATEST of all commandments:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

and with all your mind.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the greatest and the first commandment.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second resembles it: You must love your neighbor as yourself.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There it is. The answer on how to follow God\u2019s path. It was so simple and it is so simple. The Pharisees didn\u2019t have a chance against Jesus. Isn\u2019t that great?!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how do we keep these laws of God? How do we achieve these \u2013 the greatest of all God\u2019s commandments? How do we get to great? Here\u2019s a thought \u2013 why don\u2019t we start by working on being – Good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As this is one of the gospels, let us not forget that when we are hearing the Gospel, we are hearing the \u201cGood News.\u201d And for me, there\u2019s no other written words more good<\/em><\/strong> than these. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we\u2019re loving our God and loving our neighbor, should our goal be to be known as great \u2013 an external achievement of praise in this life? Or \u2013 should we, as children of God, live a good life through the sharing of our goodness, the encouragement of goodness, the acts of goodness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we are thankful for God\u2019s blessings, are we thankful for His greatness – how externally powerful He is, or are we thankful for the goodness that an all-powerful, all-knowing God possesses inside Him? I\u2019d like to think it\u2019s the latter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, if we are made in God\u2019s image, we need to follow His example as well, working each day on being good while following the Latin phrase, Soli Deo Gloria \u2013 give God the glory. Let\u2019s be good sheep in His flock. Let\u2019s also be good shepherds for others needing help in His flock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In summation, He is Great because despite all the sins and wrongdoings we do, His goodness and mercy endure forever. Thanks be to God that He is so Good! Have a good day and be Good!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

— Julian Katz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matthew 22:34-40 Is great really that\u2026great? Great to see you! Great job! That was great! You did great! As a child, I remember playing at my piano recital and my grandmother saying. \u201cThat was fine.\u201d And I truly know her \u201cfine\u201d was high praise and a wonderful compliment. But it gets lost in the mix […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.menofstjoseph.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.menofstjoseph.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.menofstjoseph.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.menofstjoseph.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.menofstjoseph.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.menofstjoseph.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61,"href":"https:\/\/www.menofstjoseph.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions\/61"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.menofstjoseph.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.menofstjoseph.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.menofstjoseph.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}