Once again, on occasion of today’s Gospel, I feel like reverting to the subject of ou
Once again, on occasion of today’s Gospel, I feel like reverting to the subject of our alleged strong faith in God. And I say alleged, because I believe that, more often than not, we either DO NOT fully believe God actually exists or we DO, but at the same time, we pay little attention to His Commandments.
In today’s Gospel Jesus says “I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved; he will go in and out freely and find food”.
Now, to enter through that Gate we have to follow His Commandments.
In a previous Gospel, Jesus states:
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command (John 15:9-14).
And this is precisely the point in question. This 11th Commandment is possible the one we pay less attention to. For, while we can claim that we love each other, we should add that this is so as long as we can choose the “other” parties. If we should truly believed in Jesus’ Words we could not have any enemies, or if we did, we could not hate them, or resent them, or misjudge them, or distrust them or, even worse, hurt or kill them.
But we do it all the time, since we wake up until we go to sleep, here, there and everywhere. As the saying goes, we argue that “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak”
An example of a 100% foolproof faith in God and subsequent compliance with His orders can be found when Abraham sets out to obey God's command without questioning but does not state in front of Isaac that he is the intended sacrifice, and it is only after Isaac is bound to an altar, that the angel of God stops Abraham at the last minute, saying that "now I know you fear God” (Gen. 22:5-8).
Right now, we are TOO civilized to believe that God really means it, when He orders us to love our enemies. We surely believe He actually means we must try to be as good as possible BUT if someone or somebody offends us or is rude to us (or to our country) we should protect our families and our belongings and God will understand in His infinite forgiveness.
Well, perhaps He will or perhaps He will not, for we should not forget that Christ died on the Cross while saying “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. (Luke 23:34).
What do you think?
Gromitt82