20/02/2011 - 7TH. SUNDAY IN ORDINARY SEASON - A
1Reading Lev 19,1-2.17-18 Psalm 102 2Reading 1Cor 3,16-23 Gospel Mt 5,38-48
God commissions Moses to tell the people a word that no one would ever expected.
God gave his commandments not for the sake of being obeyed as if he wanted to excersize
an authority over the people of Abraham, but to reveal himself through them to all
the peoples of the earth. He who obeys God becomes like him, that is, he is able
to love and to spread love like he wants to do. This is the reason why the commandment
that beholds all the other commandments is exactly this: "Be holy, because
I, the Lord your God, is holy". Then he would explain as how this holiness
grows: by not leaving a space in our hearts for hatred or vengenance, or resentment,
on the contrary, "you are to love your neighbour as yourself". Love of
neighbour, even towards the neighbour who is able to hate, is the manifestation
of holiness, of God's holiness who wants to guide us.
Jesus opens more this teaching beheld in the Book of the Leviticus, and brings it
as an example for three times. He speaks of the one who hits another on the cheek,
steeling and pretention. There could be someone who wants to hit you, who wants
to do injustice by taking away from you the support of the law, or who pretends
you carry for him heaviness freely. Normally these actions arise in man strong emotions.
What happens in the heart of the disciple? He wants to be a manifestation of God's
love, that is, a carrier of his holiness, and hence wont let anything change his
heart, wont let himself be influenced by these wrong doings. The evil one would
want you to become evil like him, but the Lord wants you to use these situations
to manifest his holiness. These are precious occassions that you can use to witness
the goodness of God. Those who look at you, see a ray of the wisdom and the free
gift of the Father's love. Jesus presents other challenges: "Pray for those
who persecute you". The heart of the Father loves like the Father. The Father
loves the good and the bad, he loves them to bring their hearts close to him, and
change it. In this way, it is given to us to love without first secure ourselves
to be considered or loved. We are to love not to answer for love, but because we
are sons and daughters of God!
Paul's exhorations is in line with these teachings: we are the temple of God and
the Holy Spirit lives in us. Every action we do is to respect this reality and show
it. We cannot reason like the world, that teaches that we are to be cunning not
to be put under someone's feet. Our wisdom should not serve us to become big in
the world, but to be lambs, in becoming meek, and be good in every situation, even
when the lambs live among the wolves. We cannot sit on two chairs: either we belong
to the world and compete with it, or we live our call to manifest God and the beauty
of his love even if we have to face the cross through the hands of men.
Let us repeat today the prayer that in short expresses our desire to be truly a
new creation: O God, in whose Son on the cross have revealed the power of love,
open our hearts to the gift of your Spirit and break the chains of violence and
hatered, so that in the victory of the good over evil, we witness your Gospel of
peace.