June 15, 2018 Friday,
Ordinary Time
1st Reading:
1 Kgs 19:9a. 11-16
Gospel: Mt 5:27–32
Jesus said to his disciples, “You have heard that it was said: Do not commit adultery. But I tell you this: anyone who looks at a woman to satisfy his lust has in fact already committed adultery with her in his heart.“So, if your right eye causes you to sin, pull it out and throw it away! It is much better for you to lose a part of your body than to have your whole body thrown into hell. If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away! It is better for you to lose a part of your body than to have your whole body thrown into hell.“It was also said: anyone who divorces his wife must give her a written notice of divorce. But what I tell you is this: If a man divorces his wife except in the case of unlawful union, he causes her to commit adultery. And the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”
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In condemning adultery with legal basis, Jesus hastens to add that adultery commences at the moment a man looks at a woman with lust. A good disciple, therefore, will be selective with what goes into his eyes, aware that most cases of adultery begin with the eyes’ inordinate delights.
It sounds like Jesus is exaggerating. But then we realize that no sacrifice is too big in avoiding sin. “An ounce of prevention is better than a thousand cure” is a valid maxim even in the spiritual realm. St. John Bosco, the patron of youth, believed that earlier steps must be taken to avoid sin by putting up the so called Preventive System of Education. Under this system, students were warned to “be wary of bad companions” and to avoid not only sin but even the occasions of it.
Jesus saw prevention as a serious responsibility of a disciple. He even prescribed, without being literal, the plucking off of the eyes that lead one to commit sin. For Jesus, no sacrifice is too great if only to avoid condemnation in hell.
The second tier of today’s Gospel reading (about divorce) follows a format of contradiction. Moses thought he may as well prescribe proper procedure for divorce since the people were practicing divorce anyway in defiance of his disapproval. But Jesus disapproved such compromise as he affirmed the inviolability of marriage.
Today’s two-tiered Gospel reading gives us a clue how to respond to Jesus’ call for deeper spirituality, namely, by nipping evil in the bud at the earliest opportunity when we detect it, and by not ever compromising our faith with the so-called “lesser evil”. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M.
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