THE CALL OF
RECONCILIATION ( ...page
6
)
THE CALL OF
RECONCILIATION ( ...page
6
)
October 10th 1998
Luke 11, 27-28
" When Jesus had said this, a woman spoke up form
the crowd and said to him «How
happy the woman who bore you and nursed you is!» But Jesus answered, «Rather,
how happy those
who hear the word of God and obey it are!»
Meditation
Let's be surprised by the fact
that from the beginning of this brief passage, when Jesus is speaking, a woman
from the crowd interrupts him in order to tell him: happy is your mother who
bore you!
Let's just stop to measure the audacity of this woman. If the Gospel mentions it,
it is important.
A woman speaks up among
people who are known. Even worse, she interrupts Jesus, she stops him, she
cannot wait. All other topics must wait, she needs to speak.
In order to understand the situation she needs to examine
how Judaism functions.
One is a Jew through one's mother. It is the woman who transmits
the religion. It is your mother that makes you a Jew. Which means
that being Jew is a heritage. You inherit your Judaism. One is born
a Jew. Being a Jew is a privilege. This is why the Jewish people said
that they were the elected people, the people chosen by God.
It is in this context that the woman says «happy is the woman who bore
you and nursed you!»
And Jesus answers:
«Rather, how happy are those who hear the word of God
and obey it!».
Jesus answers
- that faith is not a
privilege,
- that faith doesn't belong to anyone,
- that faith is not inherited.
Even if my mother and my father have
made all their best in order to make me receptive to faith, they are unable to
give me faith.
- Faith is a free
choice.
In the West, there are so many
Christian parents who have done everything in order to open the path of the
Gospel for their children, but they have dropped everything and don't believe in
anything anymore. It is true that this is very painful for the parents, it hurts.
But we can also see that faith is free, it cannot be transmitted under menace.
- Faith is a
choice of the heart,
a choice of life.
-
Faith cannot be compulsory.
It is here that we can sense a
difference between religion and faith.
For a very long time, in the west
the Catholic religion was a State religion. This is not faith.
-
Faith is free.
-
Faith is always a choice of the heart and not a choice of a government.
-
Faith is always linked to a person, it shapes the person
Peace and reconciliation
cannot be achieved through laws and decrees. They can be made by a choice of the
heart. They are not heritages. They are the result of a conversion of the heart.
They cannot be imposed. They are always free. A free choice.
You understand now the
importance of guiding, and of catholic guiding, because faith is free and
guiding is also a choice of freedom, an education towards the capacity of
choosing.
Freedom is not just having all possible rights. Freedom is
a choice, choosing Man shaped in the image of God, of Man, loved by God, created
by God.
Each man, each woman each child is an image of God.
If Jesus says to the woman
that spoke up in order to praise his mother: «Rather, how happy are those who
hear the word of God and obey it!» it is not because he doesn't agree with his
mother, but because he wants to underline that his mother is not a
privilege.Peace cannot be a privilege.Reconciliation cannot be a privilege.
Faith belongs to everybody, it is not the privilege of a
people, an ethnic group, or of those who are rich.
Everybody has access to
faith! God belongs to everybody! Because we say Our Father, it is the Father of
us all! And Jesus answers: «Rather, how happy are those who hear the word of God
and obey it!».
Happy are those who listen! Happy aren't those who preach, those who know, those
who speak, but those who listen!
God's word is free. In this very moment you'll find it in the street, it goes
through the world, it is before our eyes. I stand before it. I didn't expect it.
God's word is among us. It is not
kept prisoner in the Church. It takes the road it chooses in order to wake me
when it wants to.
Happy are those who listen to the word of God!
From the very beginning we have said that forgiveness, reconciliation, peace
is in fact listening.
I don't approach peace with my revolver, with all my
certainties, with my bank account. In order to approach peace, I have to take
off my shoes, bare my heart. One approaches faith barefoot.
Happy are those who listen to the word of God and live by it.
This morning the word of God, will be with us all day, it will ask us questions;
it will tell us a lot of things, it will help us think, it will take us far into
the road of peace, reconciliation and into the paths of the heart.
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