Do I Treat the Good and Bad Equally?

 

11th Week Ordinary Time

Tuesday

Year One

2 Cor 8:1-9

Meditation

Do I Treat the Good and Bad Equally?

 7 Now as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for you—so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking. 8 I do not say this as a command, but I am testing the genuineness of your love against the earnestness of others. 9 For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich(2 cor 8:7-9)

St Paul encourages us to be generous. He is happy that the community is doing well in life and in their faith in God. He tells them to be generous in sharing material things. True sharing is present where there is genuine love. If a Christian community is full of faith, the result is the sharing of their material blessings as well as spiritual blessings to enrich one another. Jesus himself, though he was rich, became poor and lived poor in order to make us rich materially and spiritually in the world and in the world to come. Charity makes us true Christians. Charity in taught at home and in the Christian communities.

Are we charitable to one another?

Year Two

1Kings 21:17-29

Meditation

God was furious at the greed of Ahab and Jezebel his wife. The Lord wants to punish them but at the humility of Ahab and the penance he undertook, the Lord assured the punishment will not be in his days but in the generations to come. God is just in punishing and rewarding.

Trespasses are to be punished and due reparation has to be done for purification and justification in the sight of God. One has to remember that due restitution had to be done to the harm caused to the weak and vulnerable. One has to take note and take responsibility for the damage done to innocent.

Are we aware that good repentance and renewal call for restitution and restoration?

11th week Tuesday in ordinary time

Gospel

Mt 5:43-48

Father in heaven, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. (Mt 5:45)

The Lord invites us to be perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect. Perfection is not in this world. The perfect perfection is only in heaven. As we journey on this earth, we are called to be perfect like the Father in heaven. The Father in heaven is all good and merciful; he lets the sun and rain fall on good and bad; he is not partial, he is perfect. 

His goodness reaches all people unconditionally, and he leaves us completely free. We need to experience the Fatherhood of God in our lives; only then can we begin to live our earthly life well and grow spiritually. If we do not experience the providential goodness of the Father, we will not be able to live and be happy in life.

Do I treat the good and bad equally?

Fr. Putti Anthaiah sdb