#First Things

[momentsbeforemass]

Step one

I love baking. I bake whenever I can.

One of the things that baking teaches you? The order that you do things in matters.

If you think it doesn’t, try changing the order you do things in with a recipe. You’ll end up with something different.

It may only be a little off (if you’re lucky). Or it may be an inedible mess.

However it turns out, it won’t be what you were hoping for. What the recipe was designed to produce.

This idea – that the order that you do things in matters – holds true in just about every area of life.

It’s especially true in what Jesus is talking about in today’s Gospel. The order that we do things, when it comes to our relationships with others. And even our relationship with ourselves.

If we want any of those relationships to be healthy. If we want any of them to reach their fullest potential. If we want to reach our own fullest potential.

To be what we were hoping for. To be who God made us to be.

Then there’s something that has to happen first. As Jesus tells us,

“First is this: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, 

with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.

Second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Why this order?

Because the only way to have the grace, the wisdom, the strength, the patience, the love needed to have healthy relationships with others? And with ourselves?

Is if we are first grounded in our relationship with God. Who is the ultimate source – and indeed the only source – of all of those good things.

There is simply no other place to get them.

Only then, only when we first love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind and with all our strength.

Only then will we have the grace, the wisdom, the strength, the patience to truly love our neighbor. Or ourselves.

Today’s Readings

[tonreihe]

David Bentley Hart on David Jones.

[just-french-me-up]

'ao3 needs a like and dislike button'

what you need, my algorithm-rotten minded friend, is a grip

[iamthetruestrepairman]

women’s bodies weren’t “made” to do anything, nature didn’t “intend” anything, no human action is “unnatural” and there is no inherent “purpose” to a human life

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

now that trump has tiktok, twitter, facebook and insta in his pocket, get ready for a massive wave of internet censorship. one of trump's greatest weapons has always been misinformation; it's going to become harder and harder to spread facts and criticism going forward. posts that aren't made invisible will be magically ignored by the algorithm. dissidents will have their accounts deleted and voices erased.

this is a suppression tactic. this is another stage of fascism.

[scumbagsblog]

where's that masterpost of quotes that have no right going as hard as they do. I'd like to submit "Protagonism is best left to teens and the insane"

[skullsemi]

I saw a lady today holding a kitten really high up so artistic rendition of it because it made my day. The lil guy was just okay with it

[remnantglow]

looked up a cool artist i found and instead of her actual art the first result google showed me was AI art made with her work. i hate it here!!!!!!!

[koobiie]

shoutout to everyone who wants to infodump but cant string together coherent thoughts to form sentences and instead just look at you like this

[kiwi]

as a former escape room host i highly recommend doing an escape room as a first date. its a great way to learn how ppl react under pressure and how well they collaborate with you right off the bat. also more than once ive seen people enter an escape room as a couple and exit broken up LOL its a fantastic litmus test

[inkskinned]

please i love you i'm begging you bring back suspension of disbelief bring back trusting the audience like. i cannot handle any more dialogue that sounds like a legal document. "hello, i am here to talk to you about the incident from a few minutes ago, because i feel you might be unwell, and i am invested in your personal wellbeing." "thank you, i am unwell because the incident was hurtful to me due to my childhood, which was bad." I CANT!!!!

do you know how many people are mad that authors use "growled" as a word for "said"? it's just poetics! they do not literally mean "growled," it's just a common replacement for "said with force but in a low tone." it's normal! do you hear me!! help me i love you please let me out of here!!!

[tonreihe]

A review of George Hunsinger’s Reading Barth with Charity.

[stealingpotatoes]

i love my cat but he is very fond of trickery

[hinamie]

newest issue of first years fashion just dropped

[synoicus]

I was made to love you, and yet,

Inspired by this observation by a friend: