Friday, July 05, 2019
13th Week in
Ordinary Time
1st Reading: Gen 23:1-4, 24:1-8, 62-67
Gospel: Matthew 9:9-13
As Jesus moved on, he saw a man named Matthew at his seat in the custom-house, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And Matthew got up and followed him. Now it happened, while Jesus was at table in Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and other sinners joined Jesus and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this they said to his disciples, “Why is it that your master eats with those sinners and tax collectors?”
When Jesus heard this he said, “Healthy people do not need a doctor, but sick people do. Go and find out what this means: What I want is mercy, not sacrifice. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
For collecting taxes from his own people in favor their Roman subjugators, Matthew was ostracized as a public sinner. Now we understand why the Jews were scandalized when Jesus handpicked Matthew to become his follower. But there was a compelling divine interest that eclipsed the scandal. “I did not come to call the righteous but sinners,” Jesus explained. This pronouncement has to be clarified lest it pushes people to wallow in sin in order to corner God’s preferential option.
The impenetrability of the human heart may not always be willful because there are times when people are moved to sin by sheer compulsion. Let us illustrate this concept using the Magnetic Principle called remanence. According to this principle of Physics, even when you cut off the supply of electricity, an electromagnet still retains a certain amount of magnetic power due to remanent magnetism. Something similar happens at the spiritual level. Sin inclines you to evil. Even when you flash out sin at the confessional your system still retains that inclination. The longer you had been a hardcore sinner, the more powerful the “remanence”.
In light of this we cannot always impute malice on a hardhearted person because he may be under the spell of this remanent power. Much as he wants to shape up, this remanent power holds him up. He is like a helpless lamb led to the slaughter every time this remanent power finds the right bearing. The resulting compulsion often mitigates moral culpability. In the eyes of God he is the lost sheep requiring personal attention. Such is the sinner Jesus was referring to when he said, “I have come to call sinners, not the self-righteous”.
In the case of Matthew it did not matter anymore that he was such a big public sinner. It was enough that he responded positively to a God offering a hand to him to bail him out of his sinful status. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M.
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