The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today invite us to contemplate the role of Grace in our lives that has helped us avoid prolonged problems with selfish motives fueled by emotions like anger.
Action without anger
The reading from the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel raises the question of our ways being unfair.
* [18:25] The LORD’s way is not fair: this chapter rejects the idea that punishment is transferred from one generation to the next and emphasizes individual responsibility and accountability.1
Psalm 130 is a hymn about waiting for Divine Redemption.
* [Psalm 130] This lament, a Penitential Psalm, is the De profundis used in liturgical prayers for the faithful departed. In deep sorrow the psalmist cries to God (Ps 130:1–2), asking for mercy (Ps 130:3–4). The psalmist’s trust (Ps 130:5–6) becomes a model for the people (Ps 130:7–8).2
In the Sermon on the Mount from the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus teaches concerning anger.
* [5:22–26] Reconciliation with an offended brother is urged in the admonition of Mt 5:23–24 and the parable of Mt 5:25–26 (//Lk 12:58–59). The severity of the judge in the parable is a warning of the fate of unrepentant sinners in the coming judgment by God.3
Larry Gillick, S.J. comments that Jesus, here in the last chapter of Mathew’s Sermon on the Mount, can seem to be encouraging a prayer-practice of “quid pro quid,” a what for a what. Seekers, askers, knockers seem to be promised to be the receivers. So our modern-day digital mind might wonder if we have the correct words, phrasings, intentions to connect, convince and procure. What does it take on our part to get! The last verse of today’s Gospel has an invitation rather than an easy answer.
It is so difficult for us to know what’s good for us and so we ask, seek, and knock, and there is always an answer which sounds like, “Keep on keeping on with your seeking.” The Good Father in the words of Jesus, desires us children to learn through our facing our many desires, needs, wants, hungers, to be open to us when we knock with folded, prayerful, heartful, requests. Most of what we pray for is our avoidances of experiencing our human poverty of mind, body and soul. It seems that God will never remove those experiences from us, but seems to keep, personally, inviting us through those poverties, to receive what is good for us as humans and that is to receive what comes in the mail of life, every day, every moment.4
Don Schwager quotes “Are you ashamed to ask pardon?” by Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, 354-430 A.D.
"How many there are who know that they have sinned against their brothers or sisters and yet are unwilling to say: 'Forgive me.' They were not ashamed to sin, but they are ashamed to ask pardon. They were not ashamed of their evil act, but they blush where humility is concerned." (excerpt from Sermon 211,4)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Matthew 5:20-26 comments it is God’s grace that enables us to enter the kingdom of heaven. This grace doesn’t absolve us from the call to holiness, but it removes the impossible burden of attaining by our own efforts the righteousness that God wants. That righteousness goes beyond avoiding murder, adultery, and the rest. Jesus makes it clear that “murder” includes anger, for instance. But by grace, as by a gift, God has saved us and welcomed us into a relationship with himself that makes righteousness possible. Through faith in Jesus, we receive the grace we need to live a life that pleases him.
Remember too that God’s grace doesn’t end where your faith begins. By his grace, he promises to help you every step of the way. He helps you listen to him in prayer. He strengthens you to resist temptations and to persevere in life’s struggles. He softens your heart to say yes to him and to open yourself to the love he wants to give you. He changes your desires and renews your mind so that your life might testify to what is good, pleasing, and perfect in his sight (Romans 12:2). Lent is all about grace. God knows that we will fall short of his righteousness—and even of our Lenten penances. That’s why Jesus endured his passion and death. If we could do it on our own, Christ died for nothing.6
Friar Jude Winkler uses the passage from Ezekiel to underline our choice to choose evil is the source of our disconnection from God. God cannot force us to love Him, if we reject His love. Friar Jude reminds us that Jesus emphasized broadening the spiritual nature of the commandment against anger as he cites several examples of our ability to bring spiritual death to others.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, believes that there are two necessary paths enabling us to move toward wisdom: a radical journey inward and a radical journey outward. For far too long we’ve confined people to a sort of security zone, a safe “lukewarm” midpoint, which the Bible warns us against, as to the Laodiceans (Revelation 3:15‒16). We’ve called them neither to a radical path inward, in other words, to contemplation, nor to a radical path outward, that is, to commitment on the social issues of their time. We prefer to stay in a secure middle position, probably because these two great teachers, the inner and the outer way, both cause pain. Failure and falling short are the best teachers; success has virtually nothing to teach us on the spiritual path.
It is Paul, one of the “holy fools” of our Christian faith, isolated but enthralled by a vision of universal Gospel, who can say, “Make no mistake about it: if you think you’re wise, in the ordinary sense of the word, then you must learn to be a fool before you can really be wise” (1 Corinthians 3:18). The holy fool is the last stage of the wisdom journey. It is the individual who knows their dignity and therefore does not have to polish or protect it. It is the man or woman who has true authority and does not have to defend it or anyone else’s authority. It is the child of God who has met the One who watches over sparrows and fashions galaxies, and therefore can comfortably be a child of God. They and they alone can be trusted to proclaim the Reign of God.7
Our experience of poor choices and falling short are transformed by Grace into wisdom to hear and practice the lessons of Jesus for our journey.
References
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