March 14, 2025
Friday of the First Week of Lent
Lectionary: 228
Reading I
Thus says the Lord GOD:
If the wicked man turns away from all the sins he committed,
if he keeps all my statutes and does what is right and just,
he shall surely live, he shall not die.
None of the crimes he committed shall be remembered against him;
he shall live because of the virtue he has practiced.
Do I indeed derive any pleasure from the death of the wicked?
says the Lord GOD.
Do I not rather rejoice when he turns from his evil way
that he may live?
And if the virtuous man turns from the path of virtue to do
evil,
the same kind of abominable things that the wicked man does,
can he do this and still live?
None of his virtuous deeds shall be remembered,
because he has broken faith and committed sin;
because of this, he shall die.
You say, “The LORD’s way is not fair!”
Hear now, house of Israel:
Is it my way that is unfair, or rather, are not your ways
unfair?
When someone virtuous turns away from virtue to commit iniquity, and dies,
it is because of the iniquity he committed that he must die.
But if the wicked, turning from the wickedness he has committed,
does what is right and just,
he shall preserve his life;
since he has turned away from all the sins that he
committed,
he shall surely live, he shall not die.
Responsorial Psalm
Psalm
130:1-2, 3-4, 5-7a, 7bc-8
R. (3) If you, O Lord, mark iniquities,
who can stand?
Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD;
LORD, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to my voice in supplication.
R. If you, O Lord, mark iniquities, who can stand?
If you, O LORD, mark iniquities,
LORD, who can stand?
But with you is forgiveness,
that you may be revered.
R. If you, O Lord, mark iniquities, who can stand?
I trust in the LORD;
my soul trusts in his word.
My soul waits for the LORD
more than sentinels wait for the dawn.
Let Israel wait for the LORD.
R. If you, O Lord, mark iniquities, who can stand?
For with the LORD is kindness
and with him is plenteous redemption;
And he will redeem Israel
from all their iniquities.
R. If you, O Lord, mark iniquities, who can stand?
Verse before the Gospel
Cast away from you all the crimes you have committed, says
the LORD,
and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.
Gospel
Jesus said to his disciples:
“I tell you,
unless your righteousness surpasses that
of the scribes and Pharisees,
you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven.
“You have heard that it was said to your ancestors,
You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.
But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother
will be liable to judgment,
and whoever says to his brother, Raqa,
will be answerable to the Sanhedrin,
and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna.
Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar,
and there recall that your brother
has anything against you,
leave your gift there at the altar,
go first and be reconciled with your brother,
and then come and offer your gift.
Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court.
Otherwise your opponent will hand you over to the judge,
and the judge will hand you over to the guard,
and you will be thrown into prison.
Amen, I say to you,
you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.”
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/031425.cfm
Commentary on
Ezekiel 18:21-28
The prophet Ezekiel today makes a double point. On the one
hand, if the man who has done evil genuinely repents of what he has done, he
will be totally forgiven:
None of the transgressions that they have committed shall
be remembered against them, for the righteousness that they have done they
shall live.
This is because it is God’s desire that we should live
rather than die.
On the other hand, if the formerly good man turns to a life
of sin, he will die in his sin. Some may object that that is not fair. Why
should he be punished when he did so much good in the past?
There was a tendency among the people of the Old Testament
to believe that people were not only guilty of their past sins, but even of the
sins of their parents. We remember in John’s Gospel, how Jesus was asked
whether the man born blind was that way because of his own sin or the sin of
his parents. Chronic disabilities—blindness, paralysis, deafness and the
like—were often seen as punishment for sin. When the paralysed man let down
through the roof came to the feet of Jesus, the first thing Jesus said to him
was:
Friend, your sins are forgiven. (Luke 5:20)
And his subsequent healing was taken as proof that indeed
his sins were really forgiven, because the cause had also been removed.
But here, Ezekiel is affirming that sin is something that
belongs to the individual. And that it is a person’s present disposition, and
only this, that determines God’s judgement.
One thing that comes out clearly in the Scriptures,
especially the New Testament, is that God has a very short memory. Far from
being a defect, it is a quality that very much favours us.
The person God sees is the person that I am now.
What matters are my relationships with him now. The past, good or
bad, is forgotten. There is not a divine account book with credits and debits
that have to be balanced out at the end of the day.
Judas, a chosen apostle, was lost because of the final
choice he made in life. The murderous brigand on the cross with Jesus repents,
and goes with Jesus to heaven.
Some may complain that what the Lord does is unjust. But the
reading makes the situation clear:
When the righteous turn away from their righteousness and
commit iniquity, they shall die for it; for the iniquity that they have
committed, they shall die…when the wicked turn away from the wickedness they
have committed and do what is lawful and right, they shall save their life.
It is not God who condemns us. It is we who make the choice
to be with God or to alienate ourselves from him; and God recognises our
choice.
So we too need not be anxious about our past. All that
matters is how I relate to God today, and each day forward. And the choice to
be with God, or away from him, is all ours. If today I reject God, directly or
through the way I relate with those around me, then, however virtuous I have
been in the past, I have put him out of my life. If, on the other hand, today I
choose God, then I have nothing to fear, whatever I may have been guilty of in
the past.
For our own reflection, we can be consoled that, no matter
what we did in the past, it will have no effect on our relationship with God
provided we reach out to him here and now. On the other hand, there is no room
for complacency. Our past good record can be completely undone by our turning
away at any time.
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Commentary on
Matthew 5:20-26
Today’s readings are about repentance for the wrongs we have
done and the guarantee of God’s mercy. The Gospel passage comes from the Sermon
on the Mount, and is the first of six so-called ‘antitheses’ where Jesus
contrasts the demands of the Law with those of the Gospel.
Virtue, for the scribes and Pharisees, was largely measured
by external observance of the law. For Jesus, that is not enough. For him, real
virtue is in the heart. There was a commandment not to kill, but Jesus says
that even hatred and anger (i.e. violence in the heart, often expressed by
abusive language) must be avoided. Furthermore, we cannot have one set of
relationships with God, and another set with people.
So, it is no use going to pray and make our offering to God
if we have done harm to a brother or sister. I must leave my gift at the altar,
and first go and be reconciled with my brother or sister. Only then may I come
to offer my gift.
I cannot say I love God if I hate a brother or sister:
Those who say, “I love God,” and hate a brother or sister
are liars… (1 John 4:20)
and
Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the
least of these, you did not do it to me. (Matt 25:45)
Repentance has to be expressed both to God and the person I
have hurt. It is not possible to be reconciled to one, and not to the other.
We have something like this in every celebration of the
Eucharist, although in practice, it can be very superficially done. At the
beginning of the Communion, we together recite the Lord’s Prayer in which we
all say:
…forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against
us…
How often are we conscious of saying those words, and how
often do we really mean them?
Just after that, we are invited to share a sign of peace
with those around us. Again, this can be done in a very perfunctory way. But
the meaning of this gesture is that we want to be totally in a spirit of union
and reconciliation with each other before we approach the
Lord’s Table together to break the Bread—which is the sign of our unity as
members of his Body.
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/l1016g/
Friday, March 14, 2025
Season of Lent
Opening Prayer
God of mercy and compassion,
you challenge us to be responsible for the good and the evil
we do and You call us to conversion.
God, help us to face ourselves that we may not use flimsy
excuses for covering up our wrongs.
Make us honest with ourselves, and aware that we can always
count on Jesus Christ to be our guide and strength on the road to You, now and
for ever.
Gospel Reading -
Matthew 5: 20-26
Jesus said to his disciples: "I tell you, unless your righteousness
surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the
Kingdom of heaven. You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, You shall
not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment. But I say to you,
whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, and whoever says
to his brother, raqa, will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says,
'You fool,' will be liable to fiery Gehenna. Therefore, if you bring your gift
to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave
your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and
then come and offer your gift. Settle with your opponent quickly while on the
way to court. Otherwise your opponent will hand
you over to the judge, and the judge will hand you over to
the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Amen, I say to you, you will not
be released until you have paid the last penny."
Reflection
The text of today s Gospel forms part of a broader or more
extensive whole: Mt 5: 20 up to Mt 5: 48. In these passages Matthew tells us
how Jesus interprets and explains the Law of God. Five times He repeats the
phrase: You have heard how it was said to our ancestors, in truth I tell you!
(Mt 5: 21, 27, 33, 38, 43). Before, He had said: Do not imagine that I have
come to abolish the Law or the Prophets;
no, I have come not to abolish, but to complete them (Mt 5:
17). The attitude of Jesus before the Law is, at the same time, one of breaking
and of continuity. He breaks away from the erroneous interpretations, but
maintains firm the objective which the Law should attain: the practice of a
greater justice, which is Love.
• Matthew 5: 20: An
uprightness which surpasses that of the Pharisees. This first verse presents
the general key of everything which follows in Matthew 5: 20-48. The word
Justice never appears in the Gospel of Mark, and it appears seven times in that
of Matthew (Mt 3: 15; 5: 6, 10, 20; 6:
1, 33; 21:32). This has something to do with the situation of the communities
for which Mark wrote. The religious ideal of the Jews of the time was to be
just before God. The Pharisees taught: people attain justice before God when
they succeed to observe all the norms of the law in all its details! This
teaching generated a legalistic oppression and caused great anguish in the
people because it was very difficult to be able to observe all the norms (cfr.
Rm 7: 21-24). This is why Matthew takes the words of Jesus on justice to show
that it has to surpass the justice of the Pharisees (Mt. 5: 20). According to
Jesus, justice does not come from what I do for God in observing the law, but
rather from what God does for me, accepting me as His son or as His daughter.
The new ideal which Jesus proposes is the following: therefore, be perfect as
is your Heavenly Father! (Mt 5: 48). That means: you will be just before God
when you try to accept and forgive people as God accepts and pardons me, in
spite of my defects and sins.
By means of these five very concrete examples, Jesus shows
us what to do in order to attain this greater justice which surpasses the
justice of the and the Pharisees. As we
can see, today’s Gospel takes the example of the newinterpretation of the fifth
commandment: You shall not kill! Jesus has
revealed what God wanted when He gave this commandment to
Moses.
• Matthew 5: 21-22:
The law says: You shall not kill! (Ex 20: 13). In order to observe fully this
commandment it is not sufficient to avoid murdering. It is necessary to uproot
from within everything which, in one way or another, can lead to murder, for
example, anger, hatred, the desire to revenge, insult, and exploitation, etc.
• Matthew 5: 23-24. The perfect worship which God wants.
In order to be accepted by God and to remain united to Him, it is necessary to
reconcile oneself with brother and sister. Before the destruction of the
Temple, in the year 70, when the Christian Jews participated in the pilgrimages
in Jerusalem to present their offerings at the altar and to pay their promises,
they always remembered this phrase of Jesus. In the year 80, at the time when
Matthew wrote, the Temple and the Altar no longer existed. They had been
destroyed by the Romans. The community and the communitarian celebration became
the Temple and the Altar of God
• Matthew 5: 25-26:
To reconcile oneself. One of the points on which the Gospel of Matthew exists
the most is reconciliation. That indicates that in the communities of that
time, there were many tensions among the radical groups with diverse tendencies
and sometimes even opposing ones. Nobody wanted to cede to the other. There was
no dialogue. Matthew enlightens this situation with the words of Jesus on
reconciliation which demands acceptance and understanding. The only sin that
God does not forgive is our lack of pardon toward others (Mt 6: 14). That is why
one should try to reconcile yourself before it is too late!
Personal Questions
• Today there are
many people who cry out for justice! What meaning does evangelical justice have
for me?
• How do I behave
before those who do not accept me as I am? How did Jesus behave before those
who did not accept Him
Concluding Prayer
From the depths I call to You, Yahweh:
Lord, hear my cry.
Listen attentively to the sound of my pleading! (Ps 130:
1-2)
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