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PRAYER FOR THE WEEK
Jesus, help me be nice about everyone's Halloween costumes, because they're all good! Amen.

"Teacher," Jesus was asked, "which commandment is the greatest?" He answered: "'Love God with all your heart, soul and mind.' The second-greatest is like it: 'Love others as well as you love yourself.'"

At this time of year, there's only one question on a lot of kids' minds: "What are you going to be for Halloween?"

Everyone wants to have the greatest costume - but "the greatest" means different things to different kids. Some want the scariest Halloween costume, others the prettiest. You might think homemade costumes are the best, but a friend likes the store-bought kind.

Even in Jesus' time, people wondered what was really "the greatest" - and not just the greatest clothes. In this week's Gospel (Matthew 22:34-40), they want Jesus to decide the greatest thing God ever said!

Your "greatest costume" is probably something you like best or something that really needed imagination to make: a princess, Iron Man, a taco or a caterpillar with a bunch of legs.

Jesus ranked the "greatest commandments" the same way: They were the ones that meant the most, the ones that were really all the commandments put together. Jesus said to love God and each other.

If you have a Halloween costume you're happy about, you won't be hurtful to other kids about theirs. You'll just be satisfied with yours and nice to kids who didn't get a costume that thrilled them.

That was Jesus' point, too: If you love God with everything in you and love other people, you'll be a happier person and probably obey all the other commandments about not lying, stealing and so on.

There's really no such thing as the greatest Halloween costume or the greatest commandment - but if you have to pick one, Jesus' choice makes sense! [[In-content Ad]]

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