Readings for Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A, February 19, 2017.
1st Reading: Book of Leviticus 19:1-2.17-18.
The LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the whole Israelite community and tell them: Be holy, for I, the LORD your God, am holy. “You shall not bear hatred for your brother in your heart. Though you may have to reprove your fellow man, do not incur sin because of him. Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against your fellow countrymen. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.” The word of the Lord.
Responsorial Ps: 103(102):1-2.3-4.8.10.12-13
R/. The Lord is kind and merciful.
2nd Reading: First Corinthians 3:16-23.
Brothers and sisters: Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for the temple of God, which you are, is holy. Let no one deceive himself. If any one among you considers himself wise in this age, let him become a fool so as to become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the eyes of God, for it is written: “He catches the wise in their own ruses,” and again: “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.” So let no one boast about human beings, for everything belongs to you, Paul or Apollos or Kephas, or the world or life or death, or the present or the future: all belong to you, and you to Christ, and Christ to God. The word of the Lord.
Holy Gospel: Matthew 5:38-48.
Jesus said to his disciples: “You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on (your) right cheek, turn the other one to him as well. If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well. Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles. Give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow.” You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” The gospel of the Lord.
SUNDAY REFLECTIONS:
When this law was introduced within the law of Israel, it brought a certain peace. Justice could be served, but once equal justice was dealt, the vengeance had to be considered over.But Jesus comes along and takes this practice to a whole new level. He takes the idea of “strict justice” and transforms it into mercy and forgiveness. By stating, “When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one as well,” Jesus is introducing the new concept of forgiveness rather than equal justice. Does He literally mean that we should turn and offer the other cheek? Well, that is what He said so it makes sense to accept this teaching on face value. But we’d miss the point if we got caught up in the question of this one action. What Jesus is truly trying to get across is that mercy and forgiveness must become the new law that governs our lives. So what if someone steals from us? Ought we demand that they pay us back? Though we may have a legal right to do so, it may be even better to confront that person, in love, and let them know they are forgiven.
Yes, that may be hard, but it is the mercy and forgiveness of which Jesus is speaking.
Mercy and forgiveness can, at times, appear to be contrary to justice and common sense. But it’s not. It’s a higher law calling us to a much greater level of true justice. This law can only be understood when we see the sacredness and dignity of every person, including the sinner and the criminal. We should not allow them to continue their criminal behavior, but we do administer the highest justice of God when we forgive and offer mercy. God’s justice is, first and foremost, accomplished by His mercy. If we can understand that and live it, we will see great things happen in our lives and in the lives of those we forgive.
Pray with me: Lord, help me to forgive. Help me to offer mercy as a remedy for the injustice I face in life. May I heed Your words and follow the perfect example You set while on the Cross when You prayed, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” Help me, Lord, to imitate Your love and forgiveness. Jesus, I trust in You that You alone will heal our sick brethren and set them free. May the souls of our faithful departed brethren rest in perfect peace, amen. Have a blessed and fulfilled Sunday.
Sourced by Wiezman Eleanya
HUMANISING CHRISTIANITY
I have always fiddled with the idea that the essence of the incarnation is to make us more human. I reckon that the more human we are, the closer we draw to divinity. Jesus is the true manifestation of what it means to be human. To be truly human therefore will be to rise to a higher platform of living. Jesus is perfectly God and perfectly human. God calls us to be perfect like him. Hence, in the Gospel text of today from Matthew 5:48, we hear Jesus telling us, “you, therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”.
What does it mean to be perfect? To be perfect, I must first state, is not to be a perfectionist. Perfectionism is a personality trait in psychology used to describe ‘a person’s striving for flawlessness and setting excessively high performance standards, accompanied by overly critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others’ evaluations’. A perfectionist gives no room for mistakes; is very specific about the manner in which things must be done; has an all-or-nothing approach; cares only about the end result of things; is extremely hard on himself/herself; becomes depressed when things don’t go according to his/her plan; is never satisfied with success; procrastinates just to get things done at the right time; easily spots out mistakes in others’ actions and spends unending time trying to perfect something. Perfectionists can be difficult to live with.
The perfection that Jesus talks about is one that should lead us to greater holiness. It is not one that seeks for legalistic order. We find some people in our churches whose obsession is to make sure that nothing falls out of place or that everyone dresses uniformly. These are ‘saints’ who are difficult to live with. These are the know-alls in the church, who apparently reduce Christianity to a set of laws and disciplinary procedures. Many of the sciences mimick nature and extrapolate principles from nature, forming them into laws and theories. Hence, we have the Newton’s law of gravity, Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, Gregor Mendel’s Law of Independent Assortment and T.H. Morgan’s theory of Chromosomal Inheritance. These scientific laws are usually given a mathematical equation. Hence, Newton’s Law of Gravity states: Fg = G(m1 – m2)/d2. Fg is the gravitational force; G is the universal gravitational constant which can be measured; m1 and m2 are the masses of the two objects and ‘d’ is the distance between them.
Scientists often try to discover constants in the universe and these constants are used to argue for the presence of predictable perfection in the universe. While there are several constants in the universe, there are also a lot of random processes and unpredictabilities. These random processes are not disorderly or purposeless. An instance is the process of cell division which is responsible for mutations that keep the process of evolution going is equally responsible for triggering the multiplication of cancerous cells. While doing Aesthetics in Philosophy, I used to define beauty in terms of alignment and symmetry, but a densely populated forest may not have a particular synchrony or flow, but that does not remove from its beauty. So, aside from all these scientific jargons I have been bandying about this morning, what exactly is perfection according to Christ?
The path of perfection is described for us in Leviticus 19:2 and Psalm 103:8. Hence, perfection is simply holiness and compassion. We are all called to a life of holiness. As St. Paul will make us realise in the 2nd reading from 1 Corinthians 3:16 that we are God’s temple. If we accept that a temple is a place where religious activities take place and that it is a structure dedicated to the worship and experience of God, God resides in us. God resides in us because we were made in His image and likeness (Gen. 1:27). We are therefore called to move above our animalistic tendencies and rise above mundane human logic. Mahatma Ghandi was the one who said that ‘an eye for an eye makes the world go blind’. Jesus has raised the bar for a Christian Human Behaviour. Rather than join in the fray of everyday commonness, we must act as matured Christians. Rather than be handicapped by vengeance, we must rise to seek a higher Christian approach to resolving conflicts. As Christian as Rwanda was, within the space of about 3 months, ethnic hatred and intolerance had decimated an entire nation and plunged them into an abyss of shame to our camouflaged Christianity. Nigeria is walking on the precipice with the vile and bile that is being peddled on cyberspace. What happened to Matthew 5:44?
I would summarise our call to divine perfection in the words of Micah 6:8. This is what Yahweh asks of you, only this:
i That you Act Justly
ii That you Love Tenderly
iii That you Walk Humbly with your God.
I dare say that Jesus has not come to make us gods. Jesus took flesh to teach us how to be more human. Jesus came that we may rise above board. Jesus came to teach us a higher form of living. In fact, the more human we are, the closer we inch to perfection. To be holy is not just about adherence to laws and customs. It would be good, in the words of Fr. Sahaya Selvam, SDB, if we understand holiness in terms of WHOLENESS, INTEGRATION and WELLBEING. To be whole is to be balanced; to be healthy; to be saved. To be whole is to be integrated intellectually, psychologically, physically and socially. For us to be holy, our religions and sciences must complement each other; faith should not stand in the face of reason. Luke 2:52 summarises it nicely while describing the adolescent years of Jesus that he ‘increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man’. Jesus was complete or whole in four various aspects of human development – intellectually, physically, spiritually and socio-emotionally. In the words of Daniel Goleman, Jesus was “emotionally intelligent”.
God is not some rigid, legalistic police personnel. God is compassionate (Psalm 103:8) ‘for he causes his sun to rise on the bad as well as the good, and sends down rain to fall on the upright and the wicked alike (Matthew 6:45). He allows the weed to grow with the wheat (Matthew 13:24-30). God rewards people not in terms of retributive justice but in terms of His abundant generosity (Matthew 20:1-16). In as much as God gave us the commandments to follow, He accommodates our randomness of behaviour and in His compassion brings us back into right relationship with Him. My life would have been easier if I were not a Christian. Unfortunately, if I must thread in the footsteps of Jesus Christ, my master, I must take up the challenge to embrace His life-giving compassion.
Thank you Fr. Tony for making out time to visit our website and contributing to our reflections for the day. We had you post set up on a different page https://www.2tus.com/humanising-christianity/html/ We look forward to more contributions.
Kindly share the link of the site to loved ones and friends; share the blessing!
PS: We would also share reflections for lent!
Speechless…