REFLECTION
FROM THE DESK OF THE PASTOR
In
today’s first reading Sirach tells us how we have been given a choice to keep
God’s commandments. We are told that we have to choose between fire and water,
life and death, good and evil. Our great gift of free will requires the even
greater gift of wisdom to use it well. Wisdom, however, can often be gained
through learning from our mistakes, and the mistakes of other people. We should
be grateful, then, for the times we do fail, because these are precisely the
opportunities that will occasion our growth in wisdom in the future. Our free
will is always something we can learn to exercise with greater wisdom. God
wants us to make best choices. Every time we come to Mass, we acknowledge to
ourselves and to each other that we fall short in choosing that best choice
when we pray the Penitential Rite together. God forgives us and we are able to
start afresh and that’s why we say, “Glory to God in the highest!” because he
does indeed have mercy on us. God’s wisdom is often communicated in the
language of laws. Our choices should not be done out of obligation but out of
love. The greatest act of free will is the choice to love and to be loved. We
are truly acting out of freedom. Jesus is inviting us to go beyond the letter
of the law. Jesus looks at three areas where we can make the best choice. He
takes the existing laws of not killing, not committing adultery and not
swearing falsely, and takes them further by going deeper and explaining that
the best choice is rather to choose to be peacemakers to be faithful and to
always be fruitful.
