Today's readings: we are invited to understand what is a normative way of living in seeking to know the will of God. First: we need to realize that God's will for us is not a kind of handcuff or a straight jacket. God's will for us does not reject a person's freedom. His will for all is a true calling to come to know the life and teaching of his Son as well as the way so many men and women who have daily confronted the challenges of evil in their lives have touched our lives.

Second: God's will for each of us today does mean confrontation with the evil we encounter in society. Today we run up against men and women as well as circumstances that reject the true freedom the will of God can be for us and a good life. Our freedom whether in civil or spiritual matters does not and cannot mean we can do whatever we would like to do.

Third: knowing and living God's will or the laws of a civil society can easily bring us to personal suffering, to psychological and even physical persecution from evil in its different manifestations. For some it may be the avenue to death -- the martyrdom of those who gave their lives because of commitment to values.

So, two questions: "How does the acceptance of God's will bring challenges to your life? How do you confront these challenges?"