June 12, 2014 Thursday
10th Week in Ordinary Time 1st Reading: 1 K 18:41–46Gospel:z
Matthew 5:20-26
Jesus said to the crowds, “I tell you, then, that if you are not righteous in a much broader way than the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.“You have heard that it was said to our people in the past: Do not commit murder; anyone who does kill will have to face trial. But now I tell you: whoever gets angry with a brother or sister will have to face trial. Whoever insults a brother or sister deserves to be brought before the council; whoever calls a brother or a sister ‘Fool’ deserves to be thrown into the fire of hell. So, if you are about to offer your gift at the altar and you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar, go at once and make peace with him, and then come back and offer your gift to God.“Don’t forget this: be reconciled with your opponent quickly when you are together on the way to court. Otherwise he will turn you over to the judge, who will hand you over to the police, who will put you in jail. There you will stay, until you have paid the last penny.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
The readings from today until Tuesday are part of Jesus’ discourse on some six required Christian conduct under different provisions of law which Jesus wanted to revise. He couches his discourse in the following format: “You have heard that it was said… but now I tell you…”
Jesus says: “You have heard that it was said to our people in the past: Do not commit murder (Exodus 20:13), anyone who does kill will have to face trial (Ex. 21:12). But now I tell you: whoever gets angry with a brother or sister will have to face trial…” Getting angry is not yet killing but, aware that intentional killing is almost always accompanied by anger, Jesus goes a step further by prohibiting it and even its common expressions such as the calling of anyone a fool. The Aramaic word used in the original text is “reqa” which means “imbecile”. Clinically this refers to a stagnation of mental age at age 7. In common parlance this is “stupid” – a term used to verbally abuse a person.
The punishment that Jesus mentions is in the ascending order: judgment by a local council, trial before the Sanhedrin –the highest judicial body in Judaism, and condemnation to Hell. With these penalties it is most unlikely that Jesus is just being poetic when he says that verbal abuse is tantamount to killing a fellowman. Too harsh? In the light of his calling towards deeper spirituality this is reasonable enough. – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: [email protected]. Website: www.frdan.org.
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