Sunday Gospel Reflection, February 16, 2020: Before man are life and death, good and evil...

Before man are life and death, good and evil…

How do we choose what is right?

  From the time of Adam and Eve, humankind has struggled with the notion of responsibility.  We make choices every day; sometimes they are good choices and sometimes they are bad choices, but whatever we choose, we have to own our choices.  The Book of Sirach’s advice in this respect is always to exercise discernment, that we might choose well:  if you choose, you can keep the commandments.  What Psalm 119 calls the law of the Lord are the decrees, precepts and statutes that serve as guides to living a life grounded in God.  But in every case, we must be open, embracing God’s wisdom rather than human wisdom, so that we might see as God sees.  Only then can we bring true discernment to our exercising of free will, that we might know how to observe God’s law, and keep it with all our hearts.

   In his Letter to the Corinthians, Paul also underscores the importance of being open to seeing as God sees when we make our choices:  we speak of God’s wisdom, mysterious, hidden, he tells them.  That wisdom is Jesus himself, the Word made flesh, predetermined before the world began and sent as the best expression of God’s wisdom, to teach us to be open to God’s will.  Jesus has come not to abolish but to fulfill the law, he tells the disciples in Matthew’s Gospel; he himself is the new law.  And so, he offers a new understanding of the God’s commandments, clarifying that anger is just as offensive as killing, mentally degrading another by looking at them with lust is just as offensive as adultery, and so on.  In essence, Jesus is reminding the disciples, as Sirach reminded the people of Israel,  as the Church reminds us, that at every moment, we have a choice to make – and so Jesus hopes that we will clearly discern, seeking God’s wisdom, choosing life over death and good over evil, obeying God’s commandments and accepting responsibility for our choices, aspiring always to be, one day, greatest in the kingdom of heaven, in perfect union with Jesus himself.

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.

Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, February 12, 2017: Before man are life and death, good and evil...

 Before man are life and death, good and evil…  

How do you know what to choose? 

   Thanks to the gift of free will, humankind has for all of time been required to make choices.  As the Book of Sirach tells us, Before man are life and death, good and evil, whichever he chooses shall be given him.  But Sirach also gives us a clue as to how to make good choices:  ideally, we must strive to see as God sees, which is the very definition of wisdom:  Immense is the wisdom of the Lord.  We must also trust in God, and listen to where our heart tells us to go – a response that is possible through prayer, because prayer puts us at our core, where God dwells in us.  More specifically, Psalm 119 encourages us to pray for discernment, that we may observe God’s law and keep it with all our heart.  If we are committed to the Lord’s way, to the Lord’s laws, then we will be blessed.

   In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus goes one step further, reminding his disciples that the letter of the law is insufficient:  they must look to the spirit of the law, recognizing, for example, that anger itself is a form of murder, for we can kill a relationship as surely with anger as with a weapon.  For Jesus, divisiveness is never justified:  all that we do must be done in consideration of how our actions affect others, and how our deeds might be life-giving to others, rather than tearing them down.  After all, discernment is a process:  if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift.  And discernment should always lead to love.

   The Corinthians have had a hard time grasping this concept. Thanks to Jesus’ death and resurrection, we now have access to the depths of God through the Spirit:  we speak God’s wisdom, Paul says, mysterious, hidden but now revealed to us through the Spirit.  We need heart wisdom to understand that Jesus is the fullest expression of God’s love, a unifying love, connecting and binding us to one another.  It is that love that must govern our choices.  So, if we have come to understand what God has prepared for those who love him, then we know that it is to the heart of God that we must open our own hearts, and to the wisdom of God that we must entrust our choices, and our lives.

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.

Image source:  Wordle