7th Sunday in Ordinary Time / A 20/02/2011
Matthew 5, 38-48
We continue our meditation on this Sunday's sermon on the Mount in Matthew. And we can really on top of this teaching by Jesus that the law of Moses leads to perfection. The end of our Gospel tells us just how much we have here is a divine teaching, the same test substance of the Gospel message: "You, therefore, be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." Jesus will never pushed too far the demands of love in this Gospel. And he does about two realities: the rejection of revenge and love of enemies. Christian perfection consists precisely to listen and follow in these areas of our lives. So, welcome the Word of God, trying to understand it, and especially do not see it reserved for some utopian idealists living on another planet than ours ... Think it would mean that holiness is for others, and that Jesus would ask us here in the concrete attitudes unachievable our human lives.
The Lord by a verse from the Old Testament has since become a saying of our French language: "An eye for eye, tooth for tooth." This precept of the Law of Moses, despite all its imperfections, was actually a step forward if we hand in the context of biblical revelation. Remember the following pages in the book of Genesis, the story of the original fall and culminating in the deluge. These pages show how evil has continued to expand its hold in the hearts of men. And among the descendants of Cain, the first murderer, there are a Lamech, the first polygamist. In Chapter 4 we find the terrible speeches that this man to address his two wives: "I killed a man for wounding me, a boy for a scratch. For if Cain is avenged 7 times, will be Lamech 77 times. " And it is in response to this glorification of violence and vengeance that the Lord will say to Peter need to forgive 77 times 7 times, that is to say without any limit. Posting in the context of retaliation tries to limit the revenge which seems fair. It does not eliminate the violence, but merely to moderate. It is the basis of what we know as self-defense. Exceeding this law by Jesus will just undermine the principle of legitimate defense of persons and that is what shocks us most, so this principle seems to us just in terms of morale. "I tell you not to respond to the wicked." Robert Pirault gives an interesting interpretation of this commandment which forbids revenge " Do not resist evil by imitating the wicked. " And this is how St. Paul understood the words of the Lord. In his letter to the Romans he teaches the Christian: "You do not let yourself be overcome by evil, but you will conquer evil with good." Jesus does not ask us to be indifferent to evil or to love suffer. It forbids us to use violence (which is bad) to eliminate the evil. Revenge implies that we take the same weapons as the one who hurt us, and we come together in an endless spiral of violence. It is this vicious circle of violence between the perpetrator and the victim wants to break that Jesus among his disciples and through them into the new humanity. While we better understand the scope of the following: "If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." Balmary Marie made a comment to this illuminating passage: "Masochism is presenting the same play to him who knocks, for there again. When Jesus asks us to make another play to him who knocks for him to wake. " The violence is locked in a battle of violence and the failure to find a violent response in front of him may destabilize it, thereby awakening the sleeping consciousness by bad habits. Returning St. Thomas Aquinas, Jacques Maritain pointed out that there are two kinds of courage: the courage to attack and the courage to bear, which correspond to two kinds of forces, strength and striking force that supports it. For Maritain "the cross is the sign of the transcendent ways that are within the force that supports it, or the courage to suffer." "Do not resist evil by imitating the wicked" is not in the Christian sign of weakness but rather a higher power that has its origin in God. Jesus himself did not apply his teachings to the letter to "turn the other cheek" but we have the spirit shown at his trial. The soldier who hit it just does not tend the other cheek, he is content to question: "If I have spoken evil, shows what is wrong, but if well, why strike me you? "Nonviolence of Jesus does not mean he accepts the injustice, quite the contrary.
"Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, to be truly the son of your Father in heaven: for he makes his sun rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust. " I hope we have the grace not to have enemies. But if this were to happen to us we have been warned about the right attitude to adopt. Jesus love motivates enemies by asking us to look at the Father and his action in favor of men. Simone Weil, the Jewish philosopher, recalls "the perfection of the Father which the sun and rain are blind to crime and virtue." The attitude here that the Lord expects of us is supernatural. It does violence to human nature marked by sin. The Christian is one who, following Jesus and in communion with him, and imitates the Father wants to be like him in all things, the Christian is the son of God. The mention of a reward, however, poses problem and it needs to be understood. The motive of love of enemies found in the attitude of God who is Father to all. God, obviously, does not act for fear of punishment or for a reward. It acts according to his inmost being, by his goodness, his mercy, his justice and holiness. Have a pure intention is to act in God's way. If we have the grace to forgive our enemies, pray for them and love them, we do not reward or pay. If we have a business relationship with God, such give and take, then our intent is impure. Then what reward is it here? This is the reward of the Christian: it consists in the joy of doing good in the property itself that we seek, and in deeper communion with God so that we can live. Our reward is the good itself that makes us more like God our Father. It was at St. John Bosco that I leave the last word: "I recognized that there was nothing better than to be happy and do good in his life."
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