Our duty to God is to love all: Not to ease and aimless quiet Doth that inward answer tend, But to works of love and duty As our being’s end!

September 06, 2026

Our duty to God is to love all: Not to ease and aimless quiet Doth that inward answer tend, But to works of love and duty As our being’s end!

Not to ease and aimless quiet

Doth that inward answer tend,
But to works of love and duty
As our being’s end.

—J. G. Whittier

It is surprising how practical duty enriches the fancy and the heart, and action clears and deepens the affections. Indeed, no one can have a true idea of right, until he does it; any genuine reverence for it, till he has done it often and with cost; any peace ineffable in it, till he does it always and with alacrity. Does any one complain, that the best affections are transient visitors with him, and the heavenly spirit a stranger to his heart? Oh, let him not go forth, on any strained wing of thought, in distant quest of them; but rather stay at home, and set his house in the true order of conscience; and of their own accord the divinest guests will enter.

—J. Martineau

Our duty to God is to love! Yes, not to ease and aimless quiet Doth that inward answer tend, But to works of love and duty As our being’s end! I saw these two quotes/poems today, they were inline with what I wrote about for the Sunday mass today, so I will repeat somethings again here. Ironically, I used the word alacrity and then here it is again in this second quote, how ironic, how beautiful God does work for sure! As I was saying in the previous blog post, fraternal correction, sometimes it is needed, it helps others and society, judging with love to improve humanity and have more peace in this world! This week, the mass readings for Sunday talk a lot about being a good person, upright, holy, and to offer fraternal correction when needed. I know I do a lot of preaching here on this blog, often interjecting my concerns with the ills of society. I am not crazy about haters, potheads, and F-bombers at all. Nor am a crazy about selfish, greedy, corrupt, fraudulent, evil, wicked, bully-like, and aggressive people. Sometimes you have to point out or call them out on bad behavior. Today's mass talks about this somewhat. I agree. Sometimes people get public rebuke for bad behavior, I still remember when I saw Pope Francis slap a lady who just wanted to kiss his hand, he was mean and aggressive, not nice to her. It was sad to see. He got a lot of bad press for that. Yesterday when we went to church, I saw the deacon push/shove a man who was just holding the door for all of them to start the procession of the mass. The deacon aggressively shoved this poor skinny, older, bearded man, it was not a nice image for anyone to see from clergy, being so aggressive, assaulting someone like that inside a church for that matter. I see a lot of this hypocrisy from the clergy. We had a priest at our old church, he would never look at us or have anything to do with us at church or when we would see him at the gym too. He never spoke to us, we switched to a different church closer to our home with a more loving priest who invited us to his happy hours and was loving and kind. The old priest one time at the gym came up to us a few months after we stopped going to his church and asked us if we still went to his church, we said no, we switched. We were honest to him, spoke only to him, but told him, he ignored us, showed no love, and we found a church with love and kindness and a priest who cared, so we had switched. He was offended and not nice, he did not like the truth, was snapping and sarcastic, but still continued to be the same way. He did apologize once to us a few months later, but we thought it seemed insincere, but we just pray for him now and for all clergy. We did as the Gospel reading today told us to do, spoke only to him when he asked. Sometimes you have to offer fraternal correction, praying he thinks about how he treated us and others. As for the deacon yesterday at the Saturday morning mass, I would love to tell him the image I have seeing him shove someone at church did not resonate well with me. I hope the poor guy who was shoved speaks up to him to correct the bully like behavior from the deacon, sometimes power goes to their heads I think. It was unkind and not nice for the public to see him act so aggressively. We all can learn a lot from this. We all need to treat all people with love. We need to live with alacrity to always do God's will showing love for all quickly and at all times! It is all about love, not emotion or sexual love, but the love God wants us to have for all our brothers and sisters, for all people, the love that Jesus spoke about, the love in the Ten Commandments. We need to love all people and show it, do the will of God, do it with alacrity. It is all about fraternal love for all, that is what we need in humanity today. We see a lot of hate, haters, people with TDS, so many make so many excuses for sin, hate, and lawlessness. We need to call them on it. It too is our duty! If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts! That is what my blog tries to do, to spread the love Jesus wants us to promote, the reason God has our beings here on this Earth, even if it includes some fraternal correction, that is what this blog does as well as sharing the miracles of God with all, the love of Jesus is the greatest miracle of all! We need to do all with love for others in mind always! Love is what really matters and makes a difference in this world! We are all called to the duty of God to love one another, that is the reason for our being! Yes, our duty to God is to love everyone!