International Catholic Conference of
Guiding
Reconciliation - Luke 11, 27-28
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[Matthew 5-20-26][
Luke 10, 38-42][
Luke 11, 5-13][
Luke 11, 15-26]
[ Luke 11, 27-28][ Luke
17, 11-19][ Luke
11, 42-46][ Luke
11, 47-54]
Luke 11, 27-28
When Jesus had said this, a woman spoke up form the corwd and said to him « How happy is the woman who bore you and nursed you ! »
But Jesus answered, « Rather, how happy are those who hear the word of God and obey it! »
| Meditation |
by Jean Debruynne |
Let's be surprised by the fact that from the beginning of this brief passage, when Jesus is speaking, a woman form 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 amongst people who are knowlegable. On the top of it, he
interrupts Jesus, she stops him, she cannot wait. All other topics must wait,
she needs to speak.
In order to understand the situation whe need 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 a Jew of you. Which means that Jewishness is a
heritage. You inherit your Jewishness. One is born a Jew. To be a Jew is a
priviledge. 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 women 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 priviledge, faith doesn't belong to anyone,
faith is not inherited.
Even if my mother and my father have made all their possible 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 beleive anymore in anything.
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 convertion of the heart. They connot 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 are the images 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 priviledge 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!
Not happy are 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 amongst 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 pardon, 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 tel 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.
