This Sunday’s Gospels is filled with hard sayings, sayings that very much affect our life as Christians. The Gospel is one that needs to be taken seriously, as it has to do with our eternal destiny.
There is not much use in trying to sugar-coat this particular passage. Jesus makes mention of hell or gehenna three times, including the “hell of fire”. He also speaks of the kingdom of heaven, and of the righteousness necessary to enter the kingdom. Then, our Lord focuses in on anger and reconciliation, adultery and divorce, as well as being truthful in speech.
My brothers and sisters, we know what anger coupled with the lack of forgiveness does to us, and to our communities. We know what keeping grudges does, holding on to past hurts, even for decades. We know how much anger affects our love of neighbour, how it weakens our love and charity, towards those with whom we live and work.
We also realize that adultery hurts our social fabric, rips families apart, and gives grave scandal to friends and neighbours. Jesus also speaks of the “adultery of the heart”, that is, even looking at a man or a woman with lust. Acting as husband and wife, engaging in marital intimacy without being husband and wife, without the benefit of marriage, is also wrong and sinful. If someone persists in that state, they are not to go to Holy Communion. The words of the Book of Sirach, from our first reading, are very straightforward: “[the Lord] has not commanded anyone to be wicked and he has not geiven anyone permission to sin” (Sir 15:20). The reading from the Book of Sirach makes it very clear, that before us are “fire and water”, “life and death”. The sacred writer says to “stretch out your hand for whichever you choose…and whichever one chooses, that shall be given”.
If we are going to walk the walk of the Christian life, then we’ll need all the help that we can get. One of the helps that God has instituted for us, are the Sacraments. In speaking of the Sacraments of the New Covenant, St. Augustine calls them “greater in strength, more beneficial in their use, and easier of performance” (The Faith of the Early Fathers, William A. Jurgens, ed., vol.3, pg. 59, 1979). So, we do have the hope and promise that the Holy Eucharist and Confession, along with all the other sacraments, will help us on the way.
Another help that is offered to us on the way to salvation, is the season that begins on Wednesday, February 26th. This is the season of Lent. Lent is a time when the members of the Church fast, pray, and ask for the grace of repentance. It is my hope that on Fridays of Lent, at the 7 p.m. Masses, we will ask in a unique way for the forgiveness of sins, a softening of hearts, and for reconciliation with God and neighbour. We will ask this with special Mass formularies and homilies.
To those who are trying to walk the way of the commandments, St. Augustine offers this guidance: “Christ is formed in the believer by faith of the inner man, called to the freedom that grace bestows, meek and gentle, not boasting of nonexistent merits” (Liturgy of the Hours, vol. III, pg. 188). Everything that we have received is a gift of Christ’s grace, and so, we cannot ascribe the merit to ourselves, and act boastfully or pridefully. There is also something else to keep in mind, something that St. Paul mentions in the Second Reading: God’s wisdom is “secret and hidden”, so in some ways, it is to be expected that this “secret and hidden” wisdom is misunderstood and rejected by the “rulers of this age”, who are themselves passing away.
The hard sayings of this Gospel are meant to guide us to freedom of mind and heart: the freedom to truly love, the freedom to act justly, and the freedom to partake of the wisdom of the Cross. May Our Lady, who was truly free in Her “yes” to God, assist us in this great task. Amen.
(Fr Pawel Ratajczak, OMI, Feb. 16, 2020