8th Sunday in Ordinary Time (02.03.14)<\/p>\n
Sin Deflects God\u2019s Word<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Self-inflicted exile initially brings shame and suffering. Our first parents had first-hand experience of the loss of \u2018The Garden of Eden\u2019. They would have shared their story with their children. That initial sense of loss would lessen with passing generations. There would have been an inevitable realignment to the new predominant reality, unless the memory was held as sacred. A respected memory preserved as sacred in the hearts and minds of successive generations can be inspirational. Jewish people are exemplary in keeping alive the memory of being God\u2019s Chosen People. (See the commentary for the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord \u2013 Sunday 2nd<\/sup>\u00a0Feb 2014)<\/p>\n Self-inflicted exile brought humanity the infection of sin when our first parents disobeyed God. Sin causes us to suffer the pain of distancing ourselves from God. This in turn reduces, even disables, our innate ability to recognise and appreciate God\u2019s unconditional love for us.<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to fall into the trap of excusing or denying our human failings, an activity in which Satan all too willingly collaborates. The more humanity distances itself from God the more widespread becomes the occurrence of negative thinking. In this Sunday\u2019s (8th<\/sup>\u00a0of the Year) First Reading, we hear the prophet Isaiah (49:14-15), repeating his Jewish contemporaries\u2019 lament about their Babylonian exile, brought about by their own disloyalty, six centuries before the birth of Christ: This cry reveals a people\u2019s awareness of their self-inflicted torment. To assuage his people\u2019s suffering, God, through Isaiah, responds with powerful imagery:<\/p>\n \u201cCan a mother forget her infant,\u00a0<\/em> Because the bond between mother and child is so profound, so intense and unconditional, this love stands as an apt metaphor for describing the depth and extent of God\u2019s love for his people. God is saying that even if his people break the covenant, his love for them remains intact. The question for our generation is \u2013 will people today be receptive to God\u2019s call to them, as were the people six centuries before Christ?<\/p>\n Then, God\u2019s people were enslaved by a cruel, despotic regime of daily deprivation and torment. Today, God\u2019s people are enslaved by decades of self-deception and self-excused, un-repented sinfulness. Our western world has legalised massive numbers of direct abortions, rampant pornography, blatant self-indulgent promiscuity, substance abuse and the misuse of power at all levels to hitherto unknown depths. The accumulative effect of this daily defiance of the God\u2019s Love for them cannot but deaden people\u2019s awareness of God. Is God\u2019s powerful metaphor from Isaiah, proclaimed today, heard by listening congregations? Does it activate, within them, a real desire to be an evangeliser in the home, at work, among friends and colleagues?<\/p>\n The question needing an answer is: Is God\u2019s Word prevented from fully engaging with humanity because of humanity\u2019s increasing fascination with Evil? If this is so, one immediate effect is the fading of the critical voice of conscience.<\/p>\n Satanic temptations have built in, devilishly clever, systematic self-excusatory explanations. Were this not so, Satan would have seriously underestimated the alignment of our conscience with God\u2019s unconditional love.<\/p>\n In this Sunday\u2019s Gospel (Matthew 6:24-34) Jesus teaches the need for a unified application of willpower. We cannot serve two dialectically opposed masters. Jesus said to his disciples:<\/p>\n \u201cNo one can serve two masters.\u00a0<\/em> Many in Europe attempt to disprove Jesus\u2019 teaching. Strip away the subterfuge and people are revealed as being at loggerheads with God, now regarded as a sort of equal. If previous generations suffered from an over-accentuated fear of God, current generations have taken the proverbial pendulum to the other extremity with an added twist.<\/p>\n Whether they understand it or not, many today have surrendered their personal choice to the universal master of deceit, Satan, under the banner of \u2018political correctness\u2019. It is proving deceptively spiritually suicidal. The appearance of God\u2019s presence remains in buildings and state pageantry but is largely just empty symbolism. The core of living faith in people has been either surreptitiously stolen or seriously compromised so that just the shell remains. Ancient parchments of Scripture and monuments, historical and modern, have their part to play but nothing can replace the evidence of a visibly lived faith.<\/p>\n In his first Letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul tells us: (3:16-18) Blessed John Paul ll (soon to be declared a Saint) put it eloquently in \u2018Ad Gentes\u2019 (21) In partnership with Pope Francis and the bishops, as successors of the Apostles, all the Baptised are called to be an unquenchable force for truth and life in a world where, presently, evil and death might seem to have the upper hand.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 8th Sunday in Ordinary Time (02.03.14) Sin Deflects God\u2019s Word Self-inflicted exile initially brings shame and suffering. Our first parents had first-hand experience of the loss of \u2018The Garden of Eden\u2019. They would have shared their story with their children. … Continue reading
\n\u201cThe Lord has forsaken us; my Lord has forgotten us.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
\nbe without tenderness for the child of her womb?\u00a0<\/em>
\nEven should she forget, I will never forget you.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
\nThey will either hate one and love the other,\u00a0<\/em>
\nor be devoted to one and despise the other.\u00a0<\/em>
\nYou cannot serve God and mammon.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
\n\u201c<\/em>Don\u2019t you know that you yourselves are God\u2019s temple\u00a0<\/em>
\nand that God\u2019s Spirit dwells in your midst?\u00a0<\/em>
\nIf anyone destroys God\u2019s temple, God will destroy that person;<\/em>
\n\u00a0for God\u2019s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.<\/em>
\nDo not deceive yourselves\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
\n\u201cYou who are laypersons in the Church and who possess faith, the greatest of all resources \u2013 you have a unique opportunity and a crucial responsibility. Through your lives in the midst of your daily activities in the world, you show the power that faith has to transform the world and to renew the human family. Even though it is hidden and unnoticed, like the leaven or the salt of the earth spoken of in the Gospel, your role as laity is indispensable for the Church in the fulfillment of its mission from Christ.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n