30/08/2009 - 22nd. Sunday in Ordinary
Season - B
Ist. Reading Deut 4,1-2.6-8 Psalm 14 IInd. Reading Jam 1,17-18.21-27 Gospel
Mk 7,1-8.14-15.21-23
"Forgive us our sins". It's a painful chapter. We confess
that we are debtors: of what and to whom? When the Pharisees and the Herodians
came to Jesus, they asked him whether they, being Jews, God's people, were to
pay taxes to the pagan emperor of Rome. The Lord asked for a dinar on which
there was the image and the writing of Cesar, and said: "Give to Cesar
what belongs to Cesar and to God what belongs to God". To God what belongs
to God: "The earth and all that it contains" says one of the Psalms.
Man is the work of his hands, made "on his own image and likeness",
on whose face reflects a divine light. We are debtors to God for our life, and
then for that love that fulfills it and make it happy; we are debtors for all
the good we get to do, because our capacity, be it intellectual or physical,
come from him. If we give to God what belongs to him, we remain without anything.
We are to give him our heart, to love him with all our strength, with all our
mind, with all our being. Forgive us our sins, so that we can live in peace
and without fear. We cannot pay this debt, of course, as God himself says: "Man
cannot save himself, nor pay back to God the price. Its to high and it won't
be enough to live without seeing the grave" (Ps. 48,8-10). But then it
continues: "But God will save my life". This is what we ask, that
he himself will take us by hand and don't count our weakness. The rich of this
world have no advantage, because one cannot buy his life and make it his own
with money. We remain always a creation of God and his property. The rich may
have a disillusion if they think that they are self sufficient. This may come
soon to an end. Jesus had declared richness as 'unjust', when it stops someone
from being a son of God and a brother among the brethren, or is betrayed by
it. When we die, richness abandon us, it does not follow us to pay our debt.
Moses said to the people not to add neither to subtract from the laws given
by God. The one who would want to change God's commands, sin enormously of pride:
that is, one thinks that he is better than God and hence superior to him. The
laws give in the Decalogue, are laws that order the individual life of the family
and society. They are complete and are the best among the laws of other peoples.
All the nations of the world envy the wisdom and the intelligence and the duration
of the ten commandments. The one who obeys these laws show that he adores the
true divinity, the God who loves his people and accompany them on their journey
here on earth. With Moses we praise God's for his wisdom contained in the commandments
and in them manifested. It's a wisdom that is reflected in the joy and peace
that come from the living of these laws, and is also reflected even when, on
the contrary, there is pain and long negative repercussions that the non living
of these laws bring in one's life as that of a whole society.
In today's Gospel, Jesus underlines the need to obey the commandments. They
are not to be put aside for other secondary norms that are more rules of a good
etiquette or hygiene. These can sometimes be missed without serious damage,
while the damage caused by the disobedience to the commandments, is not easy
to fix. Our hearts should have more the fear of God than the preoccupation of
following ways that are transmitted by men. Man's existence is ruined by what
his heart proposes as fruit of disobedience to God's laws. Jesus give a list
of these: "evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice,
deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly". If we look
into our hearts, and around us, we would see that these are the fruit of the
abuse of freedom given to us by God. It could be shocking.
St. James, in his letter, exhorts us to welcome the Word of God and witness
in our lives. That Word has the power to save us, because it brings us to live
and grow in that love that makes us look like our Father, God! He tells us that
the true religion is that of a real love, that love that moves us to reach out
to those who are in need, to those who are weak and have no voice, a love that
helps us to rule our impulses.
To be able to live this pure and generous love, it is necessary "to keep
oneself unstained by the world": this world is the world that keeps us
away from the Father, that hates the name of Jesus and of those who follow him,
that proclaims disobedience to the commandments of God. This world is oriented
to do and justify evil, to the point of propose it by laws and sustain it by
money: it is truly a world subject to Satan, enemy of man, the one who causes
sufferings and death. We want to be in this world as light that lead, that enlighten
a secure way, a sign of a different life, new, a gift of God, a gift that gives
the light of truth and the comfort of forgiveness and inner communion. This
world has no other resources to live and hope if not the life of obedience to
the wise laws of God! This world hates us, but needs us!