An Undivided Word

June 13: Friday of Week 10 of Ordinary Time, Year A-II:

A thought for those who want to reveal the risen Jesus in their lifestyle.

1Kings 19:9, 11-16; Psalm 27:7-9, 13-14; Matthew 5:27-32

“If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out.” Matthew 5:29

God is One. He is “pure”—unmixed and undivided—in thought, word and deed. His “Yes” is pure yes—forever.

Sex is a language. All authentic sexual actions are the expression of self-gift—total and forever. Once God says  “Yes” sexually—with and through someone who is his body on earth—that yes can never be reversed. To take it back or divide it between two living persons at the same time is “adultery.”

God cannot speak a partial yes. Or desire with a partial desire. He loves only with his whole heart and gives himself totally or not at all. When God in his body on earth makes a sexual desire his own, it is desire for total gift. And he desires with his whole being.

If we give our will’s consent to desiring only physically or emotionally, without the approving participation of our intellect enlightened by faith; or to desiring in a way that is human but not divine, we are divided. We are mixing yes and no. We are impure.

The New Law calls us to think and act like God. It does not make precise rules about concrete actions. Christ’s words about marriage are the only teaching in the Sermon on the Mount that we have interpreted literally and made into Canon Law (Church law).

PRAY: “Lord, you have the words of eternal life.”

PRACTICE: Act with your whole self.