Bible
Study: James 5, 9 to 12 and Mark 10, 1 to 12.
Based on the content of the
letter of St. James, I am sure if he was a teacher, his title would be Professor
of Practical Theology. No big words, no coded language; St. James gives us to
us just at it is.
Today, St. James comes up
with a solution to a problem that can be said to be the root cause of quarrels
and misunderstandings among people. He says we should stop grumbling,
complaining or judging other people so that we ourselves would not also face
judgment.
The only way we can avoid
judging people is to learn to judge our very own selves. Have you noticed how
it is so easy to blame everyone else for a particular predicament and paint ourselves
as good and perfect? If we are so perfect, how come everyone else is not as
perfect as we are? How come people are always the cause of our problems?
By learning to judge
ourselves which is called examination of conscience, we are able to see our weaknesses
and by so doing, we are able to appreciate the weaknesses of others. Is it
everything you plan to do that you eventually do? Are there no times, you have
no intention of offending others only for them to get the wrong interpretation
of your actions and accuse you falsely? If we can offend people without even intending
to, it is a testament of our imperfection and before getting mad at others, we
should tell ourselves how perhaps, they never intended to offend us.
Coming down to the Gospel
passage, the disciples are shocked to hear Jesus for the first time going
against a commandment that Moses wrote down. It is taken that Moses never wrote
any commandment on his own, that everything he wrote, he was dictated by God
himself. So they are really surprised to hear Jesus say that the commandment
concerning divorce was Moses’ own way of dealing with their “hardness of heart.”
According to Jesus, from the very beginning, God intended that marriage is to
be meant for better for worse and for an entire lifetime.
Consider the fact that when
they got into the house, the disciples had to ask him again whether or not he
really meant what he said. And behold, he repeated: “Whoever divorces his wife
and marries another, commits adultery and if she marries another, she commits
adultery.”
Is it the case that Jesus
does not know how difficult it can be to live with certain persons? How does he
expect you to remain in a marriage where your very life itself is threatened? The
answer is simple: Marriage is not about finding the right person, rather it is
about being the right person for another. If we apply what St. James says, we
can see that most times, marriages have issues because of a desire in us to
shift blames always to the other person. We never see anything wrong with
ourselves. We never try to work on ourselves. We believe that we are so perfect
and we assume that there are perfect persons for us out there.
Dear friends in Christ,
there is no perfect human being on earth. Each and every one of us has serious
issues and left to our brute animal nature, no two humans can live together in
perfect peace and harmony, not even identical twins. Yet, God so designed us to
live as family and he made marriage the normal way of life for human beings. That
people are succeeding in marriage; that people are celebrating silver, bronze
and golden jubilees in marriage is not a matter of luck. It is a matter of
deciding to work things out, a matter of deciding to be the best friend for the
other person, a matter of loving that person despite their obvious
imperfections.
Marriage is a matter
allowing our “Yes” to be “Yes” and our “No” to be “No.” On the day of your
wedding, you said “I Do.” And you also said “I don’t” at the same time. The success
of your marriage lies in your decision to stand by your Yes and your No to
things that shouldn’t be there. Your marriage will succeed, when you learn to
judge yourself rather than judging the other, when you learn to admit your
faults and say: “I am sorry.”
Today we celebrate a great Saint.
He was the greatest preacher of his time, journeying across Italy, calming
strife-torn cities, attacking the paganism he found rampant, attracting crowds
of 30,000, following St. Francis of Assisi’s admonition to preach about “vice
and virtue, punishment and glory.” Compared with St. Paul by the pope,
Bernardine had a keen intuition of the needs of the time, along with solid
holiness and boundless energy and joy. He accomplished all this despite having
a very weak and hoarse voice, miraculously improved later because of his
devotion to Mary.
When he was 20, the plague
was at its height in his hometown, Siena. Sometimes as many as 20 people died
in one day at the hospital. Bernardine offered to run the hospital and, with
the help of other young men, nursed patients there for four months. He escaped
the plague but was so exhausted that a fever confined him for several months.
He spent another year caring for a beloved aunt (her parents had died when he
was a child) and at her death began to fast and pray to know God’s will for
him.
At 22, he entered the
Franciscan Order and was ordained two years later. For almost a dozen years he
lived in solitude and prayer, but his gifts ultimately caused him to be sent to
preach. He always traveled on foot, sometimes speaking for hours in one place,
then doing the same in another town.
Let us pray:
Lord Jesus, give me grace to
see my faults and learn to live in peace with others rather than judge and
condemn them. Amen.
Good morning.
Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you.
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