Thursday: Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 5:20-26. Jesus said to his disciples: I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven. You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment. But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, Raqa, will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, You fool, will be liable to fiery Gehenna. Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court with him. Otherwise your opponent will hand you over to the judge, and the judge will hand you over to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny. Copyright © Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, USCCB Commentary of the day : Benedict XVI, pope from 2005 to 2013 Homily of 29/05/2005 (trans. © copyright Libreria Editrice Vaticana rev.) Go first and be reconciled with your brother The Christ whom we meet in the Sacrament is the same... here in Europe, as in America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. He is the one same Christ who is present in the Eucharistic Bread of every place on earth. This means that we can encounter him only together with all others. We can only receive him in unity. Is not this what the Apostle Paul said?... In writing to the Corinthians he said: Because the loaf of bread is one, we, many though we are, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf (I Cor 10: 17). The consequence is clear: we cannot communicate with the Lord if we do not communicate with one another. If we want to present ourselves to him, we must also take a step towards meeting one another. To do this we must learn the great lesson of forgiveness: we must not let the gnawings of resentment work in our soul, but must open our hearts to the magnanimity of listening to others, open our hearts to understanding them, eventually to accepting their apologies, to generously offering our own. The Eucharist, let us repeat, is the sacrament of unity. Unfortunately, however, Christians are divided, precisely in the sacrament of unity. Sustained by the Eucharist, we must feel all the more roused to striving with all our strength for that full unity which Christ ardently desired in the Upper Room (Jn 17,21f.).
Posted on: Thu, 12 Jun 2014 21:37:57 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015