“Unbind your Disappointments ”
March 26, 2023
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal

As we heard when Jesus came, He found that Lazarus had “already been in the tomb four days.” After waiting two days from when He received word about Lazarus, it would take another two days to travel to Bethany, which is on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Once in Bethany, the sisters struggle to hide their disappointment with Jesus. “Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’” Then Mary said to Him, “Lord if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Then, “some of the Jews who were there said, ‘Could not He who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?’” Everyone believed that
Jesus could have prevented Lazarus’ death if only He had gotten there in time.

They had faith in Jesus but their faith was limited to what Jesus was capable of doing before time ran out: their faith was immature. But Jesus delayed for the sake of their faith and ours, that it may grow into maturity. Jesus said to Martha, “Your brother will rise again.” By her response, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day,” Martha expresses the Christian hope as clearly as it can be said. We know what will happen when time runs out. Death will not have the final say. God will. 

Jesus, deeply moved came to the tomb. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha thinks that Jesus wants to see the body and pay His respects. But after four days, decomposition has already begun. She said, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” He had told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he dies, yet shall he live, and everyone who believes in me shall never die. Do you believe?” And Martha had replied, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.” He who is dead, whose body is in the state of decay, hears the word of His Lord calling him by name. “Lazarus, come out.” The man who had died came out…

When we go through the conversation of this Gospel it’s not hard to imagine the questions that might be running through the minds of the disciples and the hearts of Mary and Martha. They are the same kind of questions we ask ourselves and each other whenever life is interrupted and changed in ways we do not want. They are the same kind of questions we ask when circumstances show us just how difficult, fragile, and beautiful life really is. How could this happen? Is this an e n d i n g o r a beginning? How do I move forward? How do I make sense of w h a t h a s happened? What could or should I have done differently? Is there life after this? Why didn't God do something? Every one of you could add to this list. We all have our questions, thoughts, thousands of them. The unanswered questions of life tend to leave us disappointed; Jesus seems to know that disappointment is inescapable, necessary, and even a faithful response to life’s circumstances. He neither criticizes nor ridicules Martha and Mary for their disappointment. Instead, He uses it as an opening and entry point into their lives. Jesus uses our disappointment in the unanswered questions of life to invite us to a “larger foundational reality” than what we create for ourselves and project onto the world. Isn’t that what He’s doing with Mary and Martha? “I am the resurrection and the life.” “Take away the stone.” “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” “Lazarus come out.” “Unbind him and let him go.”

With those words, Jesus is holding before Martha and Mary the valley that cuts through the center of their lives. Each of those statements is about making new. And it’s not just Lazarus being made new. It’s also about Mary and Martha being made new. 

The great question before us (and Mary and Martha) is whether we experience our disappointment as an opportunity for seeing and engaging our lives and world in new, different, and life-giving ways, or whether we experience it only as a wound that makes us close our minds and retreat from further participation.  Don’t think that Jesus did not know disappointment. He surely did. He knew disappointment in the death of Lazarus, the crucifixion, Peter’s drawn sword and violence, Judas’ betrayal, the disciples sleeping in the garden, the way His Father’s house had been turned into a den of robbers, His disciples arguing about who was the greatest, the disciples’ misunderstanding of who He is, the world’s refusal to receive Him, and in so many other ways. Every disappointment held before Him, as it does for us, is the choice between engaging or retreating from the world and our lives. He refused to be stopped by His disappointments. Instead, He used them as an entry points into our lives. They became the p o i n t s o f i d e n t i fi c a t i o n w i t h u s . H i s e v e r y disappointment becomes one more step deeper into the valley that cuts through the center of our lives. 

Dear brothers and sisters, Jesus said, “Unbind him, and let him go.” As long as we are unwilling to unbind and let go, nothing can be made new. What parts of your life do you need
to unbind? What do you need to let go of? ❖

“How well do you see?”
March 19, 2023
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal

Today’s Gospel is about ‘blindness’ and ‘seeing.’ It starts out with a man who is born blind but he ends up seeing more than what the human eyec an see. The disciples who were with Jesus would have walked right by this man and never seen him. But now that Jesus has seen Him, so do they.  

But they don’t see him in the same way that Jesus sees him. All they saw was a theological issue to be discussed and debated. “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?” These disciples are like us, everyone saw the effect that he is born blind, and everyone thought they knew the cause; his sin or his parents’ sin. 

We can see this in other parts of the Bible such as when Joseph was told that his fiancée Mary was pregnant. He concluded that the cause must be that Mary has been unfaithful and that he must quietly divorce her. Wrong conclusion. The Jews found Jesus’ tomb empty. They concluded that the cause must have been that the disciples stole the body. Wrong conclusion. No one was able to trace the cause of Jesus’ bloody death to the victory over the devil, the justification of mankind, the reconciliation of the world to the One who Created it, the perfectly complete atonement for the sins from Adam and Eve to the end of the world. In this Gospel, the disciples of Jesus saw the man who was blind from birth. They concluded that he must have been a sinner, or at least his parents were. Another wrong conclusion.

Unlike the disciples, Jesus saw that the works of God were about to be displayed in this man. The miracle of the Lord came to this man in such a sacramental way. “He spat on the ground and made mud with His saliva. Then He anointed the man’s eyes with the mud and said to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam.” It must have been the most incredible thing that happened to this man. He had never seen anything but suddenly was able to see everything. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, ‘Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?’ Some said, ‘It is he.’ Others said, ‘No, but he is like him.’ And all the while, “he kept saying, ‘I am the man.’” They demanded to see more evidence before they would believe what they were seeing. “How did it happen?” “Where is he?” All that he could tell them was that "the man called Jesus" used mud and water to cure him and that he didn't know where He was.
But as soon as he mentioned Jesus' name, he caught all the neighbors' attention and they immediately took him to the Pharisees, because the Pharisees had threatened anyone who confessed that Jesus was the Christ, be expelled from the synagogue. This poor man. Ever since Jesus came into his life, he experienced rejection as he had never experienced it before. 
The Pharisees were actually the blind ones here. They could not see the work of God displayed in this man because they’ve made up their minds not to believe. For them seeing is not believing. Their blindness was a matter of the hardness of their hearts. This is the ‘blindness’ that this account is really about. It’s the blindness that John wants to warn us all to beware of. It’s the kind of blindness that refuses to believe that Jesus is who He says He is. 

This account begins with a man whom Jesus saw. And it ends with the same man seeing Jesus. “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” Jesus asks him. ‘Who is He, sir, that I may believe in Him?” Jesus said to him, ‘You have seen Him and it is He who is speaking to you.” He said, “Lord I believe,” and He worshipped Him.  Behold the work of God was on display in this man. Jesus gave this man the gift of sight and then He gave him the gift of faith. The blind man became a new creation - enlightened and a living testimony to the Son of Man. But the religious leaders still don’t see the Son of God in Jesus. For some reason, they are unable to see Him. Two times the religious leaders called him in. Two times they interrogated him. Two times he gave glory to God. They cannot see the prophet, the man from God, that this formerly blind man now sees. They couldn’t see the new life, the new man, the new creation that bears testimony to the Man from God. Two times they turned a blind eye to this man and his God.

Even this man’s own parents distanced themselves from him. They could talk about their blind son but not about their seeing son. To see him, the enlightened son, meant they would have to tell the story. “We do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” They denied what is right before their eyes. Fear does that. 

Dear brothers and sisters, blindness is not about the quality of our vision nor the condition of our eyes. It is not about the darkness around us but, rather, the darkness within us. How we see others, our perception of the world, and the way we see life is less about the objects of our seeing and more about ourselves. We do not see God, people, things, or circumstances as they are but as we are. Until our eyes are opened by Christ our vision is really just a projection of ourselves onto the world. What we see and how we see manifests our i n n e r w o r l d . T h e y
describe and point to the fears, attachments, and beliefs within us. If we wish to see God,
life, and others as they really are then we must attend to what is going on within us. True seeing begins in the heart, not the eyes. We m u s t b e g i n t o acknowledge the fears, a t t a c h m e n t s , a n d beliefs that live within us and how they have impaired our vision.   
❖

“What Are You Thirsty For?”
March 12, 2023
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal

In John chapter 4, Jesus is presented as the ‘great soul-winner.’ We want to join Jesus today as He speaks with a poor, lost, sinful woman. The Samaritans and the Jews hated each other in those days. but there is no person or race of people beyond the reach of God's grace. All are sinners and are in need of salvation. Jesus loves them all and we are commanded to love them as well. If Jesus reached out to the most hated people of His day, then it is up to His children to tear down every wall of prejudice and reach out to people regardless of where they are or where they come from. 

Notice that Jesus was willing to go out of His way to reach this poor lost woman. She
had a history. Things done and left undone, some good some not so good: guilt, regrets, fears, wounds, and sorrows. Secrets too. She is a woman with a past. The labeled yet nameless woman in the Gospel tried to remain unknown to everyone. Everyone, except Jesus. Jesus knew she had five spouses and was currently living unmarried with a sixth man.

One thing we should remember is that women during that time period had very little choice or control over their own lives. If she was divorced it was because the men divorced her. She had no right to divorce. That was exclusively the man’s right. Maybe she was just divorced or had lost her previous husbands. The Gospel does not elaborate on this in detail. Five times left alone and of no value, five times starting over. Maybe some divorced her. Maybe some died. We don’t know. Either way, a divorce or a death is a tragedy for her. So let us not be too quick to judge. We don’t know the details of her past. Maybe we don’t need to. Maybe it is enough that she mirrors for us our own lives. We too are people with a past, people with a history.

People like her, people like us, people with a past, often live in fear of being discovered. We all thirst to be seen and to be known at a deeper intimate level. We all want to pour our lives out to those who know us, and to let them drink from the depths of our very being.

That is exactly what Jesus is asking of this woman with a past when he says: “Give me a drink.” It is an invitation to let herself be known. To be known is to be loved and to be loved is to be known. 

We all go down to some well. For some, like the Samaritan woman, it is the marriage well. For others, it is the well of perfectionism. Some go to the well of hiding and isolation. Others will draw from the well of power and control. Too many will drink from the well of addiction. Many live at the well of busyness and denial. We could each name the wells from which we drink. Day after day, month after month, year after year we go to the same well to drink. We arrive hoping our thirst will be quenched. We leave as thirsty as when we arrived only to return the next day. 

There is another well, however. It is the well of Jesus Christ. It is the well that washes us clean of our past. This is the well from which new life and new possibilities spring forth. It is the well that frees us from the patterns and habits that keep us living as thirsty people.

That is the well the Samaritan woman in today’s Gospel found. She intended to go to the same old well she had gone to for years, the well that her ancestors and their flocks drank from. Today is different. Jesus holds before her two realities of her life; the reality of what is and the reality of what might be. He brings her past to the light of the noonday. “You have had five husbands,” He said, “and the one you have now is not your husband.” It is not a statement of condemnation but simply a statement of the facts. He tells her everything she has ever done. She has been discovered. But it doesn’t end there. Jesus is more interested in her future than her past. He wants to satisfy her thirst more than judge her history. Jesus knows her. He looks beyond her past and sees a woman dying of thirst; a woman thirsting to be loved, to be seen, to be accepted, to be included, to be forgiven, to be known. Her thirst will never be quenched by the external wells of life. Nor will ours. Jesus says so.

Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty.” This is the living water of new life, new possibilities, and freedom from the past. This living water is Jesus’ own life. It became in the Samaritan woman “a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” She discovered within herself the interior well and left her water jar behind. She had now become the well in which Christ’s life flows. 
It’s not enough, however, to hear her story or even believe her testimony. Until we come to the well of Christ’s life within us, we will continue to return to the dry wells of our life. We will continue to live thirstily. We will continue to live in fear of being discovered. Come to the well of Christ’s life, Christ’s love. Come to the well that is Christ himself and then drink deeply. Drink deeply until you become the One you have drunk. 

Dear brothers and sisters, John 4:42 says,  “The Samaritans said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.'” 

There’s a difference between listening to someone describe a sunset and seeing the colors for yourself, between reading glowing reviews for a great restaurant and eating a meal. There’s also a big difference between hearing about Jesus and hearing Jesus speak directly to our hearts. The Samaritan woman leaves the well and returns to the city. She tells the people everything that has happened between her and Jesus. She is describing the most beautiful sunset she has ever seen, recounting the best meal she has ever eaten—she is extending her invitation for them to “come and see” Jesus for themselves. We hear her invitation and pray for the grace to accept it, to see and hear Jesus for ourselves. We want to hear the stories and learn wisdom from our brothers and sisters, and then we want to see the sunset, eat the meal, and hear for ourselves. This Lenten season may the Lord speak directly to your heart.   ❖

“Being Transfigured”
March 5, 2023
Deacon Dennis Walters

The book of Exodus, commonly read during Lent, contains a story similar in some ways to our Gospel’s Transfiguration account. Both are interesting from a psychological perspective, but more importantly from a spiritual one.

The Exodus situation is this: after smashing the tablets of the Law written by the finger of God because of the apostasy of Israel, Moses had to go back up Sinai to reinstate the covenant by himself carving the commandments onto two new tablets. While there, “he was with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water” (Ex 34:28). It was a time of intense prayer and communion with God. After that lengthy retreat, when he came down to the people, he was unaware that his face was so aglow that people were afraid to come near him. He had to place a veil over his face to screen the brightness; and thereafter, when he would enter the tent of meeting, he would remove the veil to speak with God in the sanctuary, but then put it back on when he came out again (Ex 29-35).

Compare that with the Transfiguration account. Jesus has taken Peter, James, and John up with Him to the top of a mountain, ostensibly to pray (mountains being symbolic of placing us nearer to God in heaven). While there, Jesus’ prayer must have so fully absorbed Him that, according to Matthew, His “face shone like the sun and His clothes became white as light (Mt 17:2) – in other words, His entire body shone with light from within Him. The whole episode may have lasted only a moment or two, but it was e n o u g h t o overpower the three apostles.
The Bible is aware of the psychological e ff e c t s  o f  e v e n t s  l i k e these. There is a b i b l i c a l notion that we become l i k e what we look at. The word look implies spending some time contemplating what we’re seeing, taking it into ourselves through our eyes. The experience can change us, how we see, and how we appear. Usually, the Bible uses this fact to warn against looking at evil, because by looking at evil we bring it into ourselves; it transforms how we view reality and ultimately affects our behavior. So Jesus warns that a man who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.  

But it can be turned around the other way: looking at something good can make us good and change our aspect, too. How many times have you heard it said of a young person in love that his or her face is aglow? Looking on what is good, what is beautiful, what is virtuous can light up our faces. By looking on God we take some aspect of Him into ourselves, which can indeed affect our appearance. Such may be one of the reasons why Israelites believed that no human being could look on God and live. They thought – accurately – that man’s finite constitution could not take in the full force of God’s infinite glory.

Of course, the face of even the person most ardently in love will eventually lose its glow. St. Paul believes that the splendor of Moses’ face gradually faded because it was surpassed by a greater and more permanent glory. Let’s try to see this in terms of the Transfiguration.
Most likely, Jesus allowed the disciples to see some of His supernatural glory both to reveal His divine identity and to give them hope and encouragement for the a p p a l l i n g crucifixion that lay ahead. But the Tr a n s fi g u r a t i o n also provides a hint of the glory that awaits all of H i s f a i t h f u l disciples. Just as Jesus radiated t h e l i g h t o f heaven, so will we as long as we persevere.

The whole point of the Christian life is for each of us to undergo a transfiguration from darkness to light. This transfiguration, if we may call it that – this change of face, which roots itself in the heart – begins at baptism and proceeds throughout life by acts of repentance and conversion to greater and greater spiritual maturity. When we’re children we talk, think, and act like children; but as we grow, we put aside childish ways to mature in love (1 Cor 13:11-12). Through obedience, through self-discipline, through trial and error, through pain endured, through pleasure and enjoyment, and through prayer, we learn over time to recognize the face of God. For the moment, we look upon that face from the outside, as it were. We learn to appreciate its beauty, to look for it in creatures and in religious images. But we want more. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, “We want something else which can hardly be put into words – to be united with the glory we look at, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.”

St. Paul tells us that, that happens as we turn to the Lord. Though our final transfiguration will only be complete in heaven, it begins here on earth. The more we turn to the Lord, who is Spirit, He says, “the veil is removed.  … And we all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord are being changed into His likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Cor 3:16-18).  
❖

“What are Your Greatest Temptations?”
February 26, 2023
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal

We are at the beginning of holy Lent. It should be a Lent in which our eyes will be opened to the truth about ourselves, who we are, and what we do. It would be a Lent during which, despite things done and left undone, we would rediscover and maybe hear for the first time that we are also God’s beloved children with whom He is pleased. Maybe it will be a Lent during which we could let go of judgments and score-keeping. Maybe it would be a Lent that would lead us to new life, a life in which we discover that we are God’s glory.

In today’s Gospel we heard about temptation, we learn from Jesus’ temptation that we are very often tempted by what is good. We can’t help but notice that none of the temptations that Jesus faced in the desert were temptations to do evil things. To make bread; just think of all the people he could feed. To jump safely from tall buildings; just think of how many people would believe in Him. To rule the kingdom of this world; just think of all the reforms he could carry out. These temptations were to do good things. Yet the devil twisted each one of these good things into a test of God’s Word and promise. 

The Holy Spirit led Jesus into the desert immediately after His baptism in the Jordan River. Jesus had just heard His Father say, ‘This is my beloved son, with Whom I am well pleased.’ But now the devil wants to turn every good and noble act into a personal challenge to God’s Word. ‘If you are the Son of God,” do this ‘If you are the Son of God,” do that. This is why it’s so dangerous to think that our good works are pleasing to God. The devil is so cunning that he can use even our good works to lead us into the temptation to sin against God. 

Another thing about temptation that we learned from Jesus’ temptation is that the devil attacks us through the small things in life. The devil uses things as simple as bread, that we take for granted and as too ordinary to matter, to separate us from God. The devil tempts us to sin with the great and noble things in life too. ‘The devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, ‘All these I will give to you if you will fall down and worship me.”

What then shall we do? How are we to resist the temptations that come to us without ceasing, day and night, for forty days and forty nights, and from every direction? How are we ever to become that “blessed person” of whom the letter of James speaks, who resists every temptation and receives “the crown of life?” Well,  let’s begin by saying that the answer certainly does not lie within ourselves. It is, in fact, because we are not able to resist the temptation to sin that Jesus Christ has come into the world. 

The first thing to understand is that the answer to temptation is not simply to try harder. St. Paul warns, “Therefore, whoever thinks he is standing secure should take care not to fall’ (1Cor. 10:12). As counterintuitive as it sounds, we are at our weakest when we think that we are strong enough to resist temptation, and we are at our strongest when we know that we are weak. For when we are weak and we know it we run to Christ and cling to Him. As Jesus entered the desert, He possessed a powerful weapon against temptation – the Word of God. In each of the temptations Jesus faced, He always answered, “It is written, it is written, it is written…” Jesus held tightly to the Father’s hand in the face of every temptation by holding onto the Word of God. Against this, the tempter could not stand. 

But how can we apply this to ourselves when we don’t know God’s Word? I’m afraid that we fall for temptation as we do, not because we doubt God’s Word, but because we simply don’t know it. But the more we are in the Word, reading it, meditating on it, memorizing it, letting it sink in, the more we are able to use its power to identify temptation and resist it. It is also another weapon that we are given to use in the face of temptation. Often, as Jesus goes about His work of teaching, preaching, and healing people, He goes away to a solitary place to pray. 

So, it should not surprise us, that when Jesus teaches the disciples how to pray, He says, “When you pray, say, ‘Our Father who art in heaven’ lead us not into temptation.” Was that not His prayer here in the desert that He now gives to us to pray in His Name? 

Dear brothers and sisters, let us begin to think about Lent and those places where we struggle in our life, what we often call the temptations, not so much in terms of self-denial but more in terms of self-knowledge. Maybe those situations offer us important revelations about ourselves. When you move beyond the dualities of good or bad, right or wrong, what we discover is that both stories are about self-knowledge. That self-knowledge should lead us to a new awakening, a new consciousness, and we see the world and ourselves in a brand-new way to turn our gaze back to God.  ❖

“Live, Love, Pray and Forgive Like God”
February 23, 2023
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal

Six times in this “Sermon on the Mount” Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said to those of old… but I say to you…” Each of the six examples pertains directly to the 10 Commandments. He’s not overriding the 10 Commandments. He is sweeping away all of the false teaching and ‘loopholes’ that have confused them. Somewhere between the giving of the Law on Mt. Sinai and the present day, lots of ‘loopholes’ had been discovered in the 10 Commandments. Sinful and fallen men and women will always strive to justify themselves before almighty God according to their keeping of God’s Law. 

Recall that last Sunday we heard Jesus say, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” (Mt 5:17-18). Listen to Jesus. “Therefore, whoever loosens one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 5:19). 

Last Sunday, we heard Jesus begin to rattle off a series of laws that Israel’s teachers had been teaching people how to find loopholes in. “You have heard that it was said…. • You can be as angry and hateful to your neighbor as you would like as long as you actually don’t murder him… • You can have all of the lustful thoughts and desires towards someone that you want as long as you don’t actually do anything to them… • You can take all the oaths you want as long as you don’t actually use God’s name… “and Jesus said, “But I say to you…” And one by one, Jesus draws out the true meaning and purpose of God’s Law and what it actually means and how we should strive to live by it. But here is Jesus Christ, the author of the Law of God and He’s telling us what it means and God’s intent for the Law.

 Love the Wrongdoer: This morning, we hear Jesus instruct His disciples saying, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ A famous law for the purpose of protecting the wrongdoer who has caused injury to someone. The punishment must be in proportion to the crime. So Moses said, ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth “It’s your right to get revenge.” But listen to Jesus. “But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” 

Dear brothers and sisters, never forget, always remember that this is from the One who was struck in the face by the soldiers, who took His cloak and His tunic and who was forced to carry His cross to the place of the skull.  said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ A famous law for the purpose of protecting the wrongdoer who has caused injury to someone. The punishment must be in proportion to the crime. So Moses said, ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth “It’s your right to get revenge.” But listen to Jesus. “But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” 

Dear brothers and sisters, never forget, always remember that this is from the One who was struck in the face by the soldiers, who took His cloak and His tunic and who was forced to carry His cross to the place of the skull.  He gave his life willingly and gladly to a world begging for life, without any thought of revenge. There wasn't any other voice  in Him but the voice of the Holy Spirit. The blood of Abel cries out for revenge against Cain. But the blood of Jesus cries out a better message. “Father, forgive them they do not know what they are doing…,” a better message that breaks the chain reaction of revenge upon revenge. This is the “righteousness that surpasses that of the Pharisees” because it puts all trust in God’s Son, who is the “righteous one” “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” is a law that is meant for governments and societies that are responsible for carrying out justice and protecting citizens, let us, as individual Christians, not resort to revenge.

2. Love your enemy: You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’” The summary of the 2nd Tablet of the 10 Commandments is, “love your neighbor as yourself.” What a wonderful world this would be if we loved our neighbor as much as we love ourselves and our neighbors loved us as much as they love themselves. It’s a good Law. But who keeps it? 

At the time of Jesus, they found loopholes in this beautiful law. They asked who is my neighbor? Once you determine who your neighbor is, then you are able to determine who your neighbor is not. And if he’s not your neighbor, then ‘legally,’ you’re well within your rights to hate him – the gentile, the tax collector, the sinner; the foreigner who worships false gods. The clever lawyer says, ‘they’re not your neighbors. They’re your ‘enemies’ and so it’s okay to hate them.’ The Pharisees got upset with Jesus because He didn’t hate whom He was supposed to hate. He even ate with them. Listen to Jesus. “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. This is how “your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees.” 

Jesus said “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” This call to perfection is the good news that offers us a new reality, a new hope, and a new path for our life. Perhaps many, will hear Jesus’ words as an impossibility. They will hear his words as a demand for moral perfectionism, a demand to always say the right words, make the correct choice, and behave appropriately. 

So what does Jesus expect from us? One of the first things Jesus expects is that we stop using our humanity as an excuse, as a reason for being less than who we really are. This call does not change the fact that you and I can name the things we have done and left undone, the ways in which we have turned against God and our neighbor. Too often we have offered retaliation instead of the other cheek. Our thoughts, words, and deeds have sometimes been filled with violence rather than love, mercy, and forgiveness. Jesus sees more for our lives than we often see for ourselves. He sees all that we are and all that we can become, children of God. This is not so much about becoming something that we are not but about becoming what God has always intended and envisioned for our lives. It is about becoming who we really already are. This means we become like God, live like God, love like God, pray like God, and forgive like
God. It is union and oneness with God. A shared life with God is our truest vocation. It is the purpose, goal, and intention for our lives. That is the perfection to which we are called. ❖

“Will you choose life, or death?”
February 12, 2023
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal

The older I get the more aware I am of the choices I have made and the consequences of those choices, not only for me but for others. Some were the right choices, others were not. Regardless of what I think about or how I evaluate my past choices, I know this. 

A lifetime of choosing has shaped who I am and my life. A lifetime of choosing has determined the relationships I have and the quality of those relationships. A lifetime of choosing has influenced the way I see and engage the world. For better or worse my life and world have been built around the choices I have made. I am not s a y i n g t h a t o t h e r p e o p l e o r circumstances do not affect or play a part in our choosing. They do. Within every set of circumstances, good, bad, or neutral, there is always a choice to be made. As our first reading tells us, “Before each person is life and death, and whichever one chooses will be given,” (Sirach 15:17).

Every day we choose between life and death. Every day we are choosing our way into one or the other. We all have our reasons for the choices we make. We choose based on the costs, benefits, and risks associated with our choices. We’ve probably made choices that we hoped would create the persona and identity that we wanted. Sometimes we choose power, control, or security. Often our choices are about self-protection or making ourselves feel better and happy. 

Have you ever chosen yes when you really meant no? I suspect we all have. Why did we do that? What was behind that? There are thousands of reasons for the choices we make. Most of us, I am guessing, look back on our choices as having been either right or wrong. They were good choices or bad choices. 

But what if there’s another way of looking at it? What if it’s not really about good or bad, right or wrong? Have you ever made a choice that you knew was the right choice, a good choice, but it left you feeling empty, as if something was missing? Despite getting what you wanted, what you chose, your life was not enriched, made full and vibrant the way you thought it would be. Instead, it felt diminished and impoverished.

Those experiences of choosing tell us there is something more. They point to the truth and wisdom in our first reading (Sirach 15:15-20). There is really only one choice to be made, and it is the choice between life and death. Sure, we make lots of other choices but in the end, the only choice that really matters is the one between life and death. It is both the ultimate choice and the ultimate criteria for making all other choices. After all, what good does it do us to gain the whole world, to be given exactly what we chose, only to lose our life? (Mt 16:26; Mk 8:36).  Is what we choose to think, say, or do life-giving? Does it sustain, nurture, and grow life for ourselves or another person? Or does it destroy, diminish, or deny life? 

We make the choice between life and death in so many ways every day of our lives. We make that choice in the ways we choose to see and look at ourselves and others. It’s in our thoughts. It’s in the words we speak as well as the things we have done and left undone. So what if we intentionally chose life in every decision we made? What if choosing life was at the center of our thoughts, the words we speak, and the things we do? How might that change your life, your relationships, and your world? I think that’s what Jesus is getting at in today’s Gospel (Mt 5:21-37).

  Jesus knows that life isn’t to be codified and that choices are more than a cost-benefit analysis, more than getting what we desire, and  more than simply following the rules. Now, I am not suggesting that we throw out the rules as if they don’t matter. Jesus did not do that. Rather, he fulfilled the law. He recognized and revealed the law to be about life. The law was never intended to divide people into categories of good or bad, right or wrong, law abider or lawbreaker. It was to point the way to life. That’s what Jesus does. That’s why He could say that He came not to destroy but to fulfill the law. Jesus did not come to make us good but to make us alive. He set us free to make choices that support, sustain, grow, and nurture life for ourselves and one another.

What if we took to heart the choice between life and death? It means we would have to look at the law and our lives differently. Keeping the law would not be the ultimate goal. Rather, it would be a means to life. It means that the choices we make would begin not with the circumstances around us but with the circumstances within us. When Jesus says in today’s Gospel, “You have heard that it was said…. But I say to you…,” He is asking us to look within ourselves, to look at the circumstances within us. He is moving our vision inward. This inward looking is the recognition that the choices we make, the words we speak, and the actions we take in the world around us, first begin and arise from the world within us. 

Jesus says, to simply restrain from murdering someone is not enough. We will be just as liable to judgment if we are angry with a brother or sister. Jesus wants the transformation of our hearts more than mere compliance with the law. It is the transformed heart that begins to change our lives and relationships. That’s what Jesus is after. Choosing life begins with looking inside. So what do you see when you look within? What anger is there? What fear? What resentments? What prejudices? What grudges? 

Dear brothers and sisters, there is good news and bad news about the choices we make. The good news is that we will be given what we choose, and the bad news is that we will be given what we choose. So choose life, choose life often, and if you need to, choose again. “Before each person is life and death, and whichever one chooses will be given,” (Sirach 15:17).   ❖