Good News Reflection
Tuesday of the 25th Week of Ordinary Time
September 21, 2010
Today's Saint: Matthew
Pray to see the good in sinners:
http://wordbytes.org/saints/DailyPrayers/Matthew.htm
Today's Readings:
Eph 4:1-7, 11-13
Ps 19:2-5
Matt 9:9-13
http://www.usccb.org/nab/092110.shtml
USCCB Podcast of the Readings:
http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/10_09_21.mp3
The message of love defeats evil
In today's resposorial psalm we proclaim, "Their message goes out through all the earth." The psalmist never imagined how possible that would become with today's technology. But – What IS our message in today's world, for today's needs, for today's people?
Look at what Saint Paul says in today's first reading; here is the core of our message. And why is this message so important to spread throughout ALL the earth? All of today's world? Because it puts a stop to evil. It's the world's salvation. We shouldn't be waiting for the Second Coming of Christ for him to drive out evil. We have a message that's already driving it out! It's power to change the world comes from Jesus ministering to others through us, speaking to others through us, and enabling us to be like him so that we actually live the message.
Do you ever wonder why God "allows" evil to continue? It's not his fault.
Jesus won the battle against evil more than 2000 years ago when he died taking our sins to the cross and then overcoming death and destruction in his resurrection. He did this because he loves us.
Today we bring that same victory into the world by "living a life worthy of our calling," treating others (ALL others) with "humility, gentleness, and patience, putting up with each other lovingly" through the empowerment of Christ's Holy Spirit "who is the binding force of peace." This is how we defeat evil using the power of Jesus.
Sending military forces against evil leaders and terrorists can bring us some protection and eventual but temporary international calmness, but that sort of victory does not stop the evil of violence nor the demonic sources of evil. Both we and our enemies have to want to live together in peace before the bumper-sticker slogans “give peace a chance” and “make love, not war” have any real meaning.
Likewise, while putting criminals in prison does stop the evil they were doing in society, it doesn't save them from their sins, nor does it cure the damage they did to others. And the death penalty certainly doesn't stop evil.
In today's Gospel reading, we see a man who deserved to be punished. And the people (and their money) needed to be protected from him. During Roman occupation, Hebrew tax collectors made a livelihood of over-taxing their own people and keeping the change. As a successful collector, Matthew was a cheater, a liar, a traitor, and a thief. Do you know any cheaters and liars? Has anyone betrayed you? Were you ever robbed?
Jesus looked past Matthew's sins and found a place in his heart where goodness still existed. If we want to conquer evil, this is where we, too, must look. Inside everyone – even terrorists – is a precious gem, the type of person God created them to be when he made them in his own image at the moment they were conceived in their mother's womb.
For this message of love to go out through all the earth and transform it, we have to live it in our everyday lives. Every day! We have to overcome our own behaviors that work against love. We have to live out Ephesians 4 in every situation. And we have to be so good at this that we can authentically invite others to do the same.
We cannot convert evil-doers who don't want to change, but we can certainly spread Christ's gift of peace much more widely than we have been doing. Every act of love in the face of evil conquers evil. Isn't it time the Body of Christ on earth started behaving more like Christ? What are YOU doing to make a difference?
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© 2010 by Terry A. Modica
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I'm dealing with a quite difficult girl, well she and her twin. She doset consider herself a sweet loving person, and when I tell her that she is, she gets upset and throws a huge fit. It's not about her self esteem. She said herself that she dosent belive in God, and blames him for everything. When I had tried to explain to her that it isn't God who is ruining her life it's the devil. She says she dosent believe in that and I quote "crap". She says she cuts herself because of her parents and wants to kill herself to, the only reason she is on this earth is because of her twin. There is where I saw her weak spot, she cares about her twin alot. And she said, the act of kindess (which I was showing her) Will go down. What I'm trying to say is, that whoever is kind and loving they will be brought down because of evil and turn into a demon theirselves. I told her that I was never going to give in,
ReplyDeleteor give up. And she said the same to. This battle lasted for hours. And non of us won. It was pretty much a tie. It's like day and night, 24 hours of light, 24 hours of darkness. It's a tie. Who does really win?
So I apologized for trying to help her, and left it at that.