Vertical Horizontal moral responsibility

This Sunday’s readings offer a great opportunity to appreciate Jesus’ commitment to the moral vision of the Hebrew Bible. This is a comment made by Dennis Hamm, S.J., Professor Emeritus in the Department of Theology at Creighton University. The PONTIFICAL BIBLICAL COMMISSION has produced a document on the Biblical Roots of Christian Conduct which looks at the search of every person for happiness and meaning and how Holy Scripture aids in understanding contemporary questions of morality. Friar Jude Winkler describes the development of the horizontal and vertical aspects of our faith as we need our relationship with God to support our relationship with each other. Pope Francis speaking on the World Day for Migrants and Refugees declares the role of the Church to love the poorest and most abandoned. This love takes the form of the particular care for the least powerful expressed in the passage from Exodus. Friar Jude and Dennis Hamm S.J. remind us of the gift of meeting God in the Presence of those to whom we offer our service. The model which Paul preaches to the Thessalonians is to imitate Christ. Our understanding of Jesus is enhanced as we realize that He taught and spoke in the manner of Jewish teachers of His time. Friar Jude reminds us that the Jewish exaggeration of Paul is a technique which flags for us superlatives in behaviour and morality. The experience of being aliens in our salvation history is that of the Israelites in Egypt and of the Holy Family who fled after Jesus birth to the same region for safety. Our moral heritage points to our responsibility to open our lives to help the aliens and refugees today.