Faith

No sentence in this sentence – Monday, 12th week in ordinary time – Matthew 7:1-5

We continue with our study of the teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. So far, Our Lord has been very demanding on the Christian disciple. Having given us identity to be the salt and the light of the world he now continues to elaborate on the behaviour of the Christian disciple.

The text of today’s teaching forms part of the third and final chapter of the three chapter ‘Sermon on the Mount.’ Ironically, even though the demands that Jesus makes of the disciples have been tough, no one seems to cop-out, on the contrary the chapter will end with us being told in 7:28 that the crowds were astounded by his teachings for he taught them as one having authority and not as their scribes.

Right away there is a lesson to learn here. While modern day preachers skirt around challenging teachings of Our Lord for fear that they may lose their congregations, Our Lord was not a people’s pleaser. He was not politically or socially correct; he was simply correct. Cardinals, Bishops and the religious in the Catholic Church need to understand that faith must not be compromised at any cost. Perhaps the empty pews are not the result of tough teaching but a result of compromised and unprepared communication of the faith by its leaders. Congregants do not come to Church to be entertained by their priests, they come to the Church to be strengthened in their weakness and to be challenged to do better.

In the Gospel of today, Our Lord asks us not to judge so that we too may not be judged. One might think that such a teaching is impossible. It would seem that ‘judging’ others is an inevitable part of our daily lives. So, let’s understand this text. Christ is not saying we can’t have an opinion, he says we should not judge. Opinions are important and even essential. They express what we feel towards a situation or a person’s actions. Opinions can change and they are subjective. Christ does not say you can’t have an opinion, he is asking us not pass sentence.

Judging another is when you close your heart and mind to any other opinions that may be. You decided that this is how it must be and seal the matter. There is a harshness in the approach to another person when we speak of judging them. When we do this, we leave no room for understanding or acceptance. Christ wants us to make room for understanding the other rather than shutting the door.

Even more, when we judge another, we inevitable usurp that prerogative which belongs to God alone. It is for this reason that Jesus says, “judge not and you will not be judged.” Does this negate the teaching that at the end of life we will be given a ‘get out of jail’ card because we never judged? No, it simply means that because we did not close the door of our hearts and minds to others, Christ will also evaluate our lives in the same measure of understanding. It is for this reason he says, “the measure you give (your judgment) will be the measure you get back” when you are judged.

It is in this context that Jesus asks us to be compassionate, for each of us have failings of our own. Most of the while, we do not see our own failings and may even stubbornly refuse to accept them. Jesus wants us to accept that each one of us have our own personal flaws and failings. The plank in our eye is what we need to remove first before we demand that the speck in our neighbour’s eye be tackled. Christ’s illustration of his point makes for a humorous picture; a man with a board in his eye trying to help a friend remove a speck from the friend’s eye. You can’t think of the picture without smiling and being amused by it.

At the heart of this teaching is an invitation to the Christian disciple to love more. While this teaching does not prohibit examining the lives of others, it certainly prohibits doing it in the spirit that is devoid of love. Jesus did not prohibit the judgment of others. He only requires that our judgment be completely fair, and that we only judge others by a standard we would also like to be judged by.

NOTE: If you read this teaching and enjoyed it may I request you to please share it with others and leave your thoughts in the comment section below. 

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Faith

If you are blessed do not be obsessed – Friday, 11th Week in ordinary time – Matthew 6:19-23

There is truth oozing out of today’ teaching. It’s clear focus is on the influence that wealth has on our lives. Many Christians may want to gloss over this teaching for it runs contrary to the grain of this world.

Christianity is often portrayed as a religion that kills joy. That of course is a lie that the secular world loves to portray. The world of today promotes joy as glamour, joy as being wealthy, joy as having the world at your fingertips…while these may bring you ‘happiness’ joy is something that has a permanent effect.

The teaching on wealth is not some damper rather it seeks to bring a sense of trust in God, that he will provide for our need and not for our greed. If today on TV, it is announced that, next month, sugar and coffee will be lacking in the market, we might all buy the most coffee and sugar we can. We accumulate because we lack trust.

We end up hoarding because we are afraid of an unknown future. We speak of keeping something for a rainy day; yet often it is not ‘a something’ that we set aside but ‘many somethings’ and finally when we do go looking for it we can’t seem to find it. This desire to horde has increased with the insecurity that surrounds us. Medical care has gone through the roof, children abandon their parents, banks collapse around us; our world has become so insecure. Most of us who profess the faith do not fall into that ‘super rich man image’ that this text builds up in our head but we do fall in the trap of hoarding little things because we do not trust in Jesus sufficiently.

The text of today also focuses on where our hearts really reside. Jesus says, “no one can serve two masters for a slave will either hate one and love the other.” In order to understand this text better we need to understand what the Bible means when it uses the word “hate.” In another text Jesus speaks of “hating father and mother for his sake and the sake of the Gospel.” The understanding of “hate” really translates as ‘love less.”

What Jesus is saying is that when you serve money you love it more than you love Him. We are called to love God with all our heart and all our strength and all our might. As Christians who seek to be rich, there could be a danger that we begin to love the creature more than we love the creator. Let us be clear of one thing; the Bible does not condemn wealth per se, it condemns the ‘love’ of wealth. Money is not the root of all evil but the love of money is! The Church does not make starvation of the poor a virtue but teaches those who are blessed wealth not to be obsessed with their wealth.

Sandwiched in this teaching is another one that focuses on the purity of the soul; It is a call and a challenge to strive for holiness in all that we do and see. We live in a world where visuals are created to dazzle and distract. Our eyes have to be trained to turn away from that which could invite darkness into our souls. It is through the eyes that sin enters the mind. No wonder Jesus was so emphatic when he said, “if you eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.”

The teachings of Our Lord in the sermon on the mount are demanding. Reading this sermon reminds us of what we as disciples are called to. We may fail the Lord, but our failing cannot be the last word. It is his love that raises us up. If today our heart has turned towards wealth and glamour and our eyes have drawn us to lustful things then let us turn to the Lord, trusting in his mercy.

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Pray then this way -Thursday, 11th week in ordinary time – Matthew 6:7-15

Rattling the Lord’s Prayer has become second nature to most of us. Jesus gave us this prayer in the context of how we ought not to pray and rattling it was certainly not on His mind. Empty phrases do not please Our God and so Jesus gave us this simple prayer of dependence before Our God. Our rediscovery of this prayer may help us to understand the gift given to us in this precious prayer.

This prayer of Jesus emanated from His heart, yet in more ways than one it was revolutionary. Addressing God as ‘Abba’, Father, was unheard of. The name of Yahweh itself was never uttered I the Old Testament. In giving us the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus brings in a dimension of intimacy and trust between the believer and God. God is no longer that distant vengeful God but a loving Father.

The prayer has a strong communitarian dimension. It may be said by a disciple or by a community of disciples but it is always said keeping the petitions of all in mind. The prayer begins with the word ‘our’ and this word is scattered all through the prayer. This fifty eight word prayer has the words ‘our’ and ‘us’, seven times and at least each time in every petition.

Pope Benedict XVI, commenting on the Lord’s Prayer said, “The Christian does not say “My Father” but “Our Father”, even in the secrecy of a closed room, because he knows that in every place, on every occasion, he is a member of one and the same body.”

It is the only prayer that Our Lord himself taught his disciples and hence called the ‘Lord’s prayer.’ The full form of this prayer includes the words, “for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever” yet it does not appear in the scripture text. This is because it was mentioned ‘as early as the Teaching of the Twelve Apostle (Didache AD 150) and so it can be added to the Our Father’ (Youcat)

The prayer contains seven petitions to the Father in heaven. The first three petitions relate to God and the right way of serving Him. The last four petitions present our basic human needs; both spiritual and physical. Clearly it teaches us that Praise of God comes before petitions of personal need.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church calls this more than a prayer. It is a path that leads us directly to the heart of the Father and is a summary of the whole gospel (Tertullian). This is one prayer that has been said right from the early church till today, several times a day, in every continent if not every nation.

Interestingly this prayer was not given to us to understand the language of God as much as it was given to us to understand God. Perhaps the awe that the disciples first received this prayer has long disappeared in the minds of the modern believer. It bothers me that as disciples by convention, we know neither the language of God nor God himself.

The privilege of calling God, Father, the joy of being one body, the dependence on God for daily basic needs and the grace to acknowledge failures in our life, is all given to the disciple who requests for salvation. The gospel of today is an invitation to discover the Lord of the prayer.

Fr Warner D’Souza

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Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving – Wednesday, 11th week in ordinary time – Matthew 6:1-6,16-18

This text in its entirety, Matthew 6:1-18, constitutes the Gospel each year on Ash Wednesday, for it takes up the disciplines that Lent calls us to; prayer, fasting and almsgiving. The Gospel of today will focus on two of these disciplines, namely fasting and almsgiving but I suggest you read the entire text and reflect on it as one composite unit.

Praying, almsgiving and fasting were the three actions expected of any pious Jew of Jesus’ time. As he had already said, Jesus did not come to destroy the law, but to bring it to perfection, to raise it to a higher level.(5:17) So he insists on performing these good actions not to be seen and praised by others, but ‘in secret’, for the Father who sees the heart will reward us.

Jesus is not criticising these practices; he is asking us to examine our motivation in doing them. More than how much one should pray, give or fast, the focus of Our Lord is on how one ought to pray, fast and give alms. Thus far, the disciples had the scribes and the Pharisees as their models in these matters but that was demolished by Jesus when he told his disciples, “Unless your righteousness exceeds the scribes and the Pharisees you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven. (5:20) Clearly their models of holiness had failed and they needed a new perspective; a Godly perspective.

For Jesus, the three spiritual disciplines of prayer, almsgiving and fasting are not an option. Look at the text, he does not say if you fast, if you give alms or if you pray. Our Lord used the word ‘when,’ clearly indicating these disciplines are not a choice in the Christian life but a necessary component of the faith.

But even a necessary component of the faith could be corrupted by members of the faith. We may hold on to the act but forget the attitude behind the act. Almsgiving is a beautiful and essential part of Christian life and should be encouraged and nurtured in our children and youth. Almsgiving by its very intention is not about us, it is about the person who is in need. So, when we insist that our names be plastered on the wall of a Church or go up in lights, for what we have done, then we lose our reward.

I want to make an appeal here to every Christians who reads this text. Please support your Church with your alms. There are too many who sit in judgment and question the Church. While financial accountability is not being discounted in this discussion it is the personal justifications that permit one to refrain from giving that I would like to question. God gives us even when we do not deserve it.

When we support Christian charities, when we support the Church, we bring about the kingdom of God. As a priest, I want to testify how blessed the Church has been when through the many kind donations, a Church in Malad East was built, the poor and needy were fed through the pandemic, children were educated, students were sent abroad to study, and ashram and a home for children were funded, medical bills of the poor were paid in full; the list goes on.

Today, Jesus reminds us of the “hall-marks” of genuine religion: prayer, fasting and almsgiving. We need all three. Prayer without some element of fasting and almsgiving could become so heavenly, as someone has said, that it is no earthly use. Fasting without prayer and almsgiving might end up as simply self-preoccupied dieting. If we give alms but have no time for prayer or some self-denial, perhaps our motto is “do good and avoid God!”

The Lord invites us to discipline ourselves but even more to bring purity to our intentions

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Forgiveness is a funny thing, it warms the heart and cools the sting – Tuesday, 11th week in ordinary time – Matthew 5:43-48

Love your enemies, this is a tough one to deal with! How we wish we could love our enemies as Jesus did from the cross. The truth is that Jesus did not see those who put him to death as ‘enemies’. He never stopped loving them and because he loved them, he saw and considered them friends who were misguided. “Father,” he said, “forgive them for they know not what they do.”

So often, our friends, misguided by their actions and words, find themselves over night on our ‘enemy list.’ How we see people is how we live and deal with them. Healing comes easier when we see a person we once loved as  misguided rather than a hated enemy.

Jesus did not see those around him as enemies but that does not mean they saw him as a friend. They plotted his death, hung around him to trap him and at his trial brought false witnesses. For them, Jesus was the enemy. Jesus had to deal with people who hated him for doing good and for being God.

It is amazing to see that everything that Jesus preached in the sermon on the Mount he practiced during his passion and death. Preaching to his disciples on this mount in Galilee he speaks of loving one’s neighbour and praying for those who persecute you. This was not what the Rabbis advocated. They had conveniently twisted the law of God. Leviticus 19:18 says, “you shall love your neighbour as yourself,” it never said you shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy. This was clearly a misrepresentation of the teachings of Moses.

It is for this reason that Jesus says, “you have heard it said,” for it was a man-made saying and not the prescription of God. God desired reconciliation and love for God is love. For the Jews at the time of Jesus, the concept of a neighbour was another Jewish brother or sister. To love a Jew who was your brother or your sister was considered mandatory. By teaching one to hate everyone else was tantamount to nothing short of religious sponsored racial and ethnic discrimination; one that chose to exterminate the other even physically.

When Jesus spoke of loving one’s enemies, he was mindful that among the enemies of the Jews, the Romans stood first in line. They were the political rulers who stopped at nothing. Their taxation imposed a hard life on the people but their remote controlling of the Jewish faith and their constant interference was seen as intolerable. It is for this reason that Jesus not only spoke of every and any enemy who should be loved but also the need to pray for one’s persecutors.

On calvary, Jesus was able to forgive because love and forgiveness was second nature to the Son of God. Love and forgiveness is not a podcast we tune into when we need to be lectured hard and long on how to forgive but like exercising in a gym, it is something that is practiced every day, till it becomes a way of life.

As Christians we desire to forgive. We say to people who hurt us that we forgive them, yet the sting of that pain seems hard to go. Jesus did not just say love your enemies; he also gave us the ‘magic portion’ to take away the sting; pray, he said. On the cross of suffering, Our Lord Jesus did not just pronounce a public declaration of forgiveness. He did not say “Enemies of Christ, I forgive you,” rather he made a public prayer of forgiveness. It is prayer that takes away the sting, not merely OUR human desire to forgive. By itself, our human desire is unable to deal with so grave a sting that has become the tool of satan but with Jesus, with prayer -hate is overcome, forgiveness is given, pain is forgotten and joy is restored.

If you want to truly forgive you need to ask yourself, ‘are those who you do not like on your prayer list or on you hit list?’

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