Fr. Michael Carlini
Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C
Jesus wants his disciples to be like his Father: compassionate, ready to forgive, slow in judging their neighbour. It is not an easy task: our human nature would go the opposite direction. When somebody wrongs me, I seek for immediate justice, or revenge. It is against our character to “Love one’s enemies”. But the followers of Christ must master their natural inclination. At the base of the teaching of Jesus there is an immense Charism, that is so rare in today’s world, which is called «gratuity»: to act out of generosity, without asking anything in return. This attitude is exactly the mode of action of God.
On the contrary, we seem to have lost the sense of mutual acceptance, to welcome any person we happen to meet as it were my brother or sister. This happens because God has lost the place it deserves: we repeat the same sin of Adam, who wanted to usurp God’s position, to become the centre of creation. As a consequence, the feeling of jealousy took over Cain’s heart, and he started to consider his brother as a threat to him, an enemy. When God is no longer seen as a Father, we stop considering other as our siblings. We become prisoners of our fears. Instead, any person we encounter is an enlargement of our soul, our personality. In everyone we see a reflection of ourselves, and we are all created in the image of God. Those who are different from us are not a threat to us, to our culture, our nation, our vision of life. They are citizens of the same planet, sharing with us the same origin and walking towards the only destination, common to all human beings. Jesus knows in depth our human heart. When he tells us to love our enemies, and not to hate and fight them, he reminds us of the great lesson of history, that we often forget: violence breeds other violence, revenge seeks revenge. Whenever force was used as an answer to aggression, a new war started. Left to itself, our human nature brings us back to the Talion (an eye for an eye), but we must overcome or innate reactions. Only when we think according to God’s mind, a peaceful future can be built. Only forgiveness and non-violence are successful solutions to conflicts, even though they require a great deal of self sacrifice. The Lord sends his rain on the field of the good man, but also on that of the wicked. The God of the Bible always gives us a new chance, a second opportunity, because he stubbornly hopes that man will be able to start a better life, to embark on a journey of conversion. The golden rule “Never do to anyone else anything that you would not want someone to do to you”. This sentence is found in the Old Testament, in the book of Tobit (4:15): is the teaching that Tobit gives to his son Tobias. Jesus turns the sentence into its positive formulation: “Treat others as you would like them to treat you”. To love one’s neighbour is to fulfil the whole scripture. This world would be transformed into heaven, if we all followed the lesson of the Golden Rule. Each time we celebrate the Mass, we know that we are all forgiven by God: each Sunday we are reminded that the measure of Love is to love without measure. That is exactly how the Lord loves us, without any calculation of what he might get in return, and as Christians we are asked to be perfect as the Father is perfect. St. Guido Conforti wrote 98 years ago “The Xaverians have a dream, a purpose in life: Make of the whole world a single family”. Today it might sound as an unrealistic statement, but the world belongs to those who have the courage to dream.
|
|
Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C
Jesus wants his disciples to be like his Father: compassionate, ready to forgive, slow in judging their neighbour. It is not an easy task: our human nature would go the opposite direction. When somebody wrongs me, I seek for immediate justice, or revenge. It is against our character to “Love one’s enemies”. But the followers of Christ must master their natural inclination. At the base of the teaching of Jesus there is an immense Charism, that is so rare in today’s world, which is called «gratuity»: to act out of generosity, without asking anything in return. This attitude is exactly the mode of action of God.
On the contrary, we seem to have lost the sense of mutual acceptance, to welcome any person we happen to meet as it were my brother or sister. This happens because God has lost the place it deserves: we repeat the same sin of Adam, who wanted to usurp God’s position, to become the centre of creation. As a consequence, the feeling of jealousy took over Cain’s heart, and he started to consider his brother as a threat to him, an enemy. When God is no longer seen as a Father, we stop considering other as our siblings. We become prisoners of our fears. Instead, any person we encounter is an enlargement of our soul, our personality. In everyone we see a reflection of ourselves, and we are all created in the image of God. Those who are different from us are not a threat to us, to our culture, our nation, our vision of life. They are citizens of the same planet, sharing with us the same origin and walking towards the only destination, common to all human beings. Jesus knows in depth our human heart. When he tells us to love our enemies, and not to hate and fight them, he reminds us of the great lesson of history, that we often forget: violence breeds other violence, revenge seeks revenge. Whenever force was used as an answer to aggression, a new war started. Left to itself, our human nature brings us back to the Talion (an eye for an eye), but we must overcome or innate reactions. Only when we think according to God’s mind, a peaceful future can be built. Only forgiveness and non-violence are successful solutions to conflicts, even though they require a great deal of self sacrifice. The Lord sends his rain on the field of the good man, but also on that of the wicked. The God of the Bible always gives us a new chance, a second opportunity, because he stubbornly hopes that man will be able to start a better life, to embark on a journey of conversion. The golden rule “Never do to anyone else anything that you would not want someone to do to you”. This sentence is found in the Old Testament, in the book of Tobit (4:15): is the teaching that Tobit gives to his son Tobias. Jesus turns the sentence into its positive formulation: “Treat others as you would like them to treat you”. To love one’s neighbour is to fulfil the whole scripture. This world would be transformed into heaven, if we all followed the lesson of the Golden Rule. Each time we celebrate the Mass, we know that we are all forgiven by God: each Sunday we are reminded that the measure of Love is to love without measure. That is exactly how the Lord loves us, without any calculation of what he might get in return, and as Christians we are asked to be perfect as the Father is perfect. St. Guido Conforti wrote 98 years ago “The Xaverians have a dream, a purpose in life: Make of the whole world a single family”. Today it might sound as an unrealistic statement, but the world belongs to those who have the courage to dream.
|
|