Monday Morning Reflections after the First Sunday of Lent

In today's Catholic mass readings, I'm not finding anything that speaks to me quite as much as the past few days, although in the reading from Leviticus (19:1-2, 11-18), it mentions "love your neighbor as yourself".  When I read through part of the Old Testament, it made a big impression on me that this appeared in the Old Testament as I thought it was new when Jesus said it.  I recall reading one interpretation was that neighbor meant something different in the two cases--extending from other Israelites in Moses's case to everyone in Jesus's.

I also want to share my experience playing at mass last night. I have not been asked to sing in a while, but I think that I am going to go back to practicing singing and playing my bass together on a regular basis whether I am given a microphone at Sunday mass or not.  I enjoyed singing and playing.  And I found that after the amount of time I have been back and practicing slightly more complex bass parts that while I did have to lay off the complexity in a few songs, in general, I was able to manage the same bas parts I'd play otherwise while singing.  I'll see how it goes moving forward, but in light of recent blog entries about being "all in" it seems fitting for me to focus my efforts on that as part of my participation in the music ministry.