FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION: ELEVENTH WEEK OF THE YEAR

FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION: 

ELEVENTH WEEK OF THE YEAR

The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:38 to 6:34):  Jesus teaches us that the only power that accomplishes lasting good on earth is the power of unconditional love.

Invitation:

Jesus saved the world as Priest by accepting to be Victim and “enduring evil with love.” He invites all who want to minister with him to do the same. This is what it means to “take up your cross.”

Our faith: How many of these statements do you believe? And live?

Matthew 5:38-42: To “endure evil with love” is the most shocking command in the New Law. But it is the love we must strive to embody in Christian ministry, because he world is not saved by ordinary human goodness, but only by God’s own incomprehensible love active on earth.

Matthew 5:43-48: Jesus’ New Law is that we must set no more limits on our forgiveness of others than God sets on his forgiveness of us.

To have “mercy” on all, we must be willing to love, forgive and help every person on earth unconditionally “out of a sense of relationship.” Because God does, and we are God’s children.

Matthew 6: 1-18: To know that God is my God, and not just the God of my religion,” it is not enough to keep all the Church’s rules and observances. I have to express my faith in personal choices that are not just what “everybody does.”

If we only do what we are “supposed to do” as Christians we do not know Christ, because servants do what they are supposed to do, but friends act out of union of mind and heart with their friend.

Matthew 6: 7-15: The secret to praying well is to make Jesus’ priorities the priorities of our own hearts. Jesus did not give us the Our Father as a formula of words to be memorized, but as an interior stance of the heart to be cultivated.

Matthew 6: 19-23: The way Jesus reigns on earth is not through force, using the powers of this world, but through the power of truth and love alone.

Matthew 6: 24-34: “No one can serve two masters.” Any dividedness in the goal toward which we direct our lives is like a crack in a wall that can bring down the whole structure of our faith.

Decisions:

Be guided in ministry by Jesus’ words to Peter: “If you love me, feed my sheep!”

In every encounter you have with every person, let Christ express his love through you. Give life through love.