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| Obviously, there is more to it...add RE after the THE...wow my first mistake! |
| First reading |
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| Deuteronomy 26:16-19 © |
| You will be a people consecrated to the Lord |
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Moses said to the people: ‘The Lord your God today commands you to observe these laws and customs; you must keep and observe them with all your heart and with all your soul.
‘You have today made this declaration about the Lord: that he will be your God, but only if you follow his ways, keep his statutes, his commandments, his ordinances, and listen to his voice. And the Lord has today made this declaration about you: that you will be his very own people as he promised you, but only if you keep all his commandments; then for praise and renown and honor he will set you high above all the nations he has made, and you will be a people consecrated to the Lord, as he promised.’
| Gospel | Matthew 5:43-48 © |
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| Pray for those who persecute you |
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Jesus said to his disciples: ‘You have learned how it was said: You must love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say this to you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you; in this way, you will be sons of your Father in heaven, for he causes his sun to rise on bad men as well as good, and his rain to fall on honest and dishonest men alike. For if you love those who love you, what right have you to claim any credit? Even the tax collectors do as much, do they not? And if you save your greetings for your brothers, are you doing anything exceptional? Even the pagans do as much, do they not? You must, therefore, be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect.’
I find it hard to believe that there is any life in the desert yet it teems with life. I also find it hard to believe that anyone would choose to live here amongst the sand dunes, snakes, and scorpions. But people do live here. We crossed paths with a Bedouin tribe, nomads who call this place home and they were friendly and very hospitable. They made their camp next to ours. Some of the more experienced men were a bit upset that this tribe had decided to stay near us. Some decided to take it upon themselves to keep watch during the night so as to be able to raise the alarm should this group's friendliness prove to be a sham. It turned out that they were, in fact, friendly and they broke camp very early in the morning and were on the move before our camp stirred out of their beds. The guard that was stood was a prudent move, a rule of survival in this inhospitable land.
The master was in a talkative mood last night around the campfire. He said a lot but I can summarize it very briefly. He said that while it is good to follow rules and regulations, they are put in place to keep things orderly, we should be willing to go above and beyond them when it comes to the Kingdom of God. As a matter of fact, He said that we must love our friends as well as our enemies. How does one do that? Take the unlamented bin Laden who was the mastermind that instituted the plot that killed over three-thousand innocent Americans on 9/11. If we had transcripts of all of the prayers prayed from that dark day until the day the villain was killed I would bet we would not find any mention of him in our collective prayers. Yet, the Master says we must love our enemies as well as our friends. I will have to wrestle with this rule.
I notice when I read the Bible that I find a lot of things that tell me what to do and what not to do. Is that all religion is? Is it a body of law or rules that supplement the civil rule of law? Is our religious law the servant of the civil law or is it its father? These are the things that go through my head as I am leading Samuel along during these hot days or when I am bundled up under my blanket in the chill desert night. Life seems to be all about rules. It makes sense. What if everyone decided to leave it to how they felt to choose which side of the road that they drove on? There would be chaos and mayhem nationwide. So, rules do have their place but I think what the Master wants us to realize that rules and regulations represent the minimum that is expected from us.
The Jews in the time of Jesus were drowning in rules. They split hairs and legislated again and again and restricted the people ever more stringently. Take for example the Sabbath there were rules about how far you could walk. If you could build or put out a fire, cook, and hundreds of other rules that made the original rules of the Sabbath even stronger. Originally, the Sabbath was made so that man would have a day to rest and refresh himself and time to worship God and time to be with and to build up family bonds, The rules became so complicated that even today in modern Israel the debate continues. For example, elevators in buildings on the Sabbath stop on every floor because pushing a button creates a spark and that would be considered work and thus is prohibited. Observant Jews hire Gentiles to come into their homes and turn lights on and off so that they do not have to profane the Sabbath. When I look at my Catholic faith, I do not see the complexity of the laws, rules, and regulations do not approach that of the first century Jews but they are there. Catholics are looked upon by Protestant denominations as a "legalistic" religion, where rules must be followed at the peril of losing one's salvation. What they say is partially true but if you analyze it you can see that the rules that are there are to keep us on the path to heaven. We Catholics know that there is no such thing as "once saved always saved." We attain our salvation through the mercy of God and our acceptance of His will on our lives. This means we will pick up our cross and follow Him and the rules we have show us the way to do this. We know that with the free will God has given us, we can choose another path that leads away from Him.
But being a Catholic is more than just following the rules. Our Lord says following the rules is just what a good servant does and he should expect no reward for doing the needful, the expected, the minimum for that is what a hireling does. We are not hirelings but ambassadors of Christ, members of the Sacred Royal Family. People are constantly on the watch for us to be less than that so that they can knowingly nod and indulge in some self-satisfying criticism of Catholics. They point to anything bad that they catch us doing and assume that all Catholics are hypocrites and they return to their church feeling safe and saved.
For a Christian, there is one rule that sums up all of the other rules. That rule is Love. Make loving your brother the heart of your day and you will have a good and blessed day. Love and Charity are the rules we are to follow and when we do this we fulfill all of the laws.
I find it hard to believe that there is any life in the desert yet it teems with life. I also find it hard to believe that anyone would choose to live here amongst the sand dunes, snakes, and scorpions. But people do live here. We crossed paths with a Bedouin tribe, nomads who call this place home and they were friendly and very hospitable. They made their camp next to ours. Some of the more experienced men were a bit upset that this tribe had decided to stay near us. Some decided to take it upon themselves to keep watch during the night so as to be able to raise the alarm should this group's friendliness prove to be a sham. It turned out that they were, in fact, friendly and they broke camp very early in the morning and were on the move before our camp stirred out of their beds. The guard that was stood was a prudent move, a rule of survival in this inhospitable land.
The master was in a talkative mood last night around the campfire. He said a lot but I can summarize it very briefly. He said that while it is good to follow rules and regulations, they are put in place to keep things orderly, we should be willing to go above and beyond them when it comes to the Kingdom of God. As a matter of fact, He said that we must love our friends as well as our enemies. How does one do that? Take the unlamented bin Laden who was the mastermind that instituted the plot that killed over three-thousand innocent Americans on 9/11. If we had transcripts of all of the prayers prayed from that dark day until the day the villain was killed I would bet we would not find any mention of him in our collective prayers. Yet, the Master says we must love our enemies as well as our friends. I will have to wrestle with this rule.
I notice when I read the Bible that I find a lot of things that tell me what to do and what not to do. Is that all religion is? Is it a body of law or rules that supplement the civil rule of law? Is our religious law the servant of the civil law or is it its father? These are the things that go through my head as I am leading Samuel along during these hot days or when I am bundled up under my blanket in the chill desert night. Life seems to be all about rules. It makes sense. What if everyone decided to leave it to how they felt to choose which side of the road that they drove on? There would be chaos and mayhem nationwide. So, rules do have their place but I think what the Master wants us to realize that rules and regulations represent the minimum that is expected from us.
The Jews in the time of Jesus were drowning in rules. They split hairs and legislated again and again and restricted the people ever more stringently. Take for example the Sabbath there were rules about how far you could walk. If you could build or put out a fire, cook, and hundreds of other rules that made the original rules of the Sabbath even stronger. Originally, the Sabbath was made so that man would have a day to rest and refresh himself and time to worship God and time to be with and to build up family bonds, The rules became so complicated that even today in modern Israel the debate continues. For example, elevators in buildings on the Sabbath stop on every floor because pushing a button creates a spark and that would be considered work and thus is prohibited. Observant Jews hire Gentiles to come into their homes and turn lights on and off so that they do not have to profane the Sabbath. When I look at my Catholic faith, I do not see the complexity of the laws, rules, and regulations do not approach that of the first century Jews but they are there. Catholics are looked upon by Protestant denominations as a "legalistic" religion, where rules must be followed at the peril of losing one's salvation. What they say is partially true but if you analyze it you can see that the rules that are there are to keep us on the path to heaven. We Catholics know that there is no such thing as "once saved always saved." We attain our salvation through the mercy of God and our acceptance of His will on our lives. This means we will pick up our cross and follow Him and the rules we have show us the way to do this. We know that with the free will God has given us, we can choose another path that leads away from Him.
But being a Catholic is more than just following the rules. Our Lord says following the rules is just what a good servant does and he should expect no reward for doing the needful, the expected, the minimum for that is what a hireling does. We are not hirelings but ambassadors of Christ, members of the Sacred Royal Family. People are constantly on the watch for us to be less than that so that they can knowingly nod and indulge in some self-satisfying criticism of Catholics. They point to anything bad that they catch us doing and assume that all Catholics are hypocrites and they return to their church feeling safe and saved.
For a Christian, there is one rule that sums up all of the other rules. That rule is Love. Make loving your brother the heart of your day and you will have a good and blessed day. Love and Charity are the rules we are to follow and when we do this we fulfill all of the laws.
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