Today’s Gospel challenges us to look at what is most important in our lives. Clearly Jesus is not telling us that we should not love our families, or the lifestyle and/or blessings that God has given us. But love of God must come first; it is in that love that all else is grounded. Loving God first and foremost enables us to then love not only our families and friends better (and as God intended), but also to love everyone we meet…even those who don’t love us back. And this last point is a large part of what Jesus meant when He said, “whoever does not take us his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.” We must love God first in order to have the grace to love others as we should. The first reading gives us an example of what happens when we love freely. The woman who invited Elisha into her home lavished comfort on both him and his assistant Gehazi. In return for her generosity, God blessed her with the thing she longed for most in this world: a son. Thus, the cycle is complete…loving God and putting Him first in our lives allows us to love others as God intended, and the reward for doing so is nothing short of happiness in this world and eternal life in God’s presence in the next. So take the challenge; we all need to make sure we have our priorities in the right order.