15th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Dear brothers and sisters in our beloved Lord,
We believe that the Word of God, our Lord Jesus, is the source and path of LIFE. God Himself came to us, was incarnate, became one of us, to save us from sin and to show us the way to live. This was already planted in us, in our heart when we were created by the Father! This is called our conscience. That is why Moses had already said: The Word of God is “something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out.” Deut 30:14
Yet because of sin, confusion and ignorance we sometime or many times are disconnected with our true self and our conscience gets darkened. We don’t see clearly what is right and what is wrong. We are perplexed. This is terrible! We loose clarity and make many mistakes. Many get hurt!! Sometimes not with malice yet still wrong.
In our day and age we see so much of this confusion. We hear so many times two contradicting affirmations that both sides claim to be truth. We could be like Pontus Pilate who once asked what is truth as he had Truth Himself in front of him. That is the degree of blindness we can have.
There are many forms of this blindness, but the most striking one for me is the blindness we can have to ourselves and other. It is so frequent to see people who theoretically love each (like married couples, family members…) that mistreat each other so much. They see the defect or problem and rarely complement the other. I’ve hear so many complaints: my spouse this and that. Rarely do I hear what a gift they are. This also applies to ourselves. Think about it: when was the last time you sincerely complemented the people you love most. Tragically sometimes this happens less after the day of marriage. Be generous with your affirmations! You are seeing and affirming the truth that God has revealed! We believe that everybody is a gift! Even the people who are most broken.
I share with you this story so that we may realize that our conscience needs to be formed. In today’s Gospel we can see Jesus forming the conscience of this scholar of the law to the topic of “love your neighbor as yourself.” Lk 10:27 Jesus is a great formator!! Through the story of the Samaritan who is merciful with no obligation to be merciful and one question: “Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?” Lk 10:36 he helps him to realize what was already planted in his heart from the very beginning. Everybody who is close to me is my neighbor! We should not discriminate!
He already knew it in his heart. Yet this was obscure. Jesus needed to help him to realize what was already there!
Let us beg the Lord to continue forming our conscience!! We need it! Therefore don’t stop reading and meditating the Word of God slowly! It is “something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out.” Deut 30:14
Have a blessed day of the Lord!
