2COR.3:5-4:1,3-6
PSALM. 85
MATT. 5:20-26
In our first reading today St. Paul makes a striking statement: ‘...this Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom’. ‘Freedom’ is one of the greatest values and gift to humanity especially in our relationship with God and humanity. There is an emphasis on people’s freedom to choose. Refusal to make a choice, is itself a choice that you have made. Saint Paul had a very particular understanding of freedom, ‘where the Spirit is, there is freedom’. For him, the truly free person is the person whose life is shaped by the Spirit, who is led by Spirit, in whose life is to be found the fruit of the Spirit. The primary fruit of the Spirit for Paul is love, as it was revealed to us in the life of Christ, self-emptying love in the service of others. For Paul the truly free person is the person who is free to love in the way Jesus loved, to whom such a way of love comes easily and naturally. The more we grow up and older into the loving person that Jesus was, the freer we are. The more we live out of that deeper virtue that Jesus speaks about in the gospel reading the more we display what Paul calls in his letter to the Romans ‘the glorious freedom of the children of God’. Paul would say that we will only have that glorious freedom to the full when all is made new, beyond this earthly life. Yet, he would also say that here and now we can begin to taste that glorious freedom of God’s children in so far as we live our lives under the influence of the Lord’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit.
In today’s gospel reading, Jesus talks about forgiveness and reconciliation as he declares that if anyone were bringing an offering to the altar and they remember that someone has something against them they should first be reconciled with their brother or sister and only then present their offering. The Lord will always send us out to work to be reconciled with those who have something against us. We may not succeed in our efforts, but the Lord calls on us to be prepared always to make the first move. ‘Go and be reconciled’ Jesus declares. Contrary to what a lot say and believe: "but he is the one who has something against me. She is the one who has hurt, why should I be the one going to make amends?" We are not just to wait for others to take the initiative; we have to make the move, even if in doing so we fail. The Lord took the initiative to reconcile us to himself, through his life, death and resurrection; he calls on us to be as ready as he was to take the same initiative when a relationship needs reconciling.
Today, as always, Jesus calls for a virtue that goes deeper than the virtue of the scribes and the Pharisees. He is looking for a virtue that is at the level of the heart or inner core of the person and not simply at the level of action. Jesus quotes one of the commandments at the beginning of our gospel reading, ‘You shall not kill’. What Jesus goes on to prohibit is not just the action of killing but the kinds of attitudes and emotions that can led people to kill one another. He warns against anger towards others and the perception of others that leads us to refer to them as fools. We might be tempted to think of the commandment, ‘Do not kill’, as not really relevant to us because the likelihood of any of us killing somebody is very remote. However, when Jesus speaks about the deeper level of emotion, attitude and perception, we cannot distance ourselves so easily. We have all, in one way or the other experienced anger and can recognize its destructive power even in ourselves. We have all perceived some people in ways that lead us to speak of them or to them in a manner that is disrespectful. We have all been hurt in various ways. Even though we may differ from others at the level of action, when it comes to that deeper level that Jesus talks about in the gospel reading we all have much more in common. That virtue at the deeper level that drives our actions is one we are all constantly striving to attain. It can only be attained with the help of the Holy Spirit, whose power at work within us can begin to shape all we do and how and why we do it.
Make a move. Be reconciled with one another even if they are the ones who have hurt and wronged you.
-PadréCharlesL'wanga-
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