Tuesday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time
God, ourselves and the neighbour
“Do not give what is holy to dogs, or throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot, and turn and tear you to pieces. “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the law and the prophets. “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many. How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few. Mt 7,6.12-14
God, us and the neighbor are the three references of every thought, every feeling and every action of our lives. The commandments which Moses received on the mount Sinai can be summarized – Jesus says – into one only: love “God” above all the things and your “neighbor” as “yourself”. The three theological virtues are the way which we have been given to love: the “faith” to love God, the “charity” to love the neighbor and the “hope” to love ourselves, because who does not live in the hope, he does not love himself. Even the precepts of the church and those which we meet in the gospel, always refer to God, to ourselves and to the others. Three are contained in the today passage of the gospel: they are all recommendations, which relate to the behavior towards the things of God, of the neighbor and of personal nature. The first concerns the respect for the things of God, which should not be given to the people who do not believe in the lordship of Jesus Christ. To the gentiles only the message of the gospel shall be brought, the announcement that Jesus Christ died and resurrected for their salvation and of the entire world. The mysteries of the kingdom and the doctrine of the church are taught later to those who believed to the first announcement, during the spiritual growth. The second recommendation relates to our behavior, to love the neighbor in the reality of the everyday life: just do to others, as we would like it would be done to us. There is no rule simpler and more practical than this one. The third regards the behavior to be taken for ourselves and our life choices, because at all times and in every situation we are faced by two doors, one large and the other narrow. In the large door, which is the one of the not commitment, of the selfishness and of the criticism, we can enter more easily, but then we can found ourselves in a narrow and untenable context. We can enter with much more difficulty in the narrow door, because we do violence to our nature which, because of the sin, is not magnanimous, generous and benevolent, but, once inside, we are in the boundless areas of God.