RESTORATION OF STRUCTURES OF LIFE


THURSDAY, THIRTEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Amos 7:10-17; Ps 19:8-11; Mt 9:1-8

The Decree of the Lord is Perfect

The word of God is the source of all natural structures, both physical and nonphysical. By listening, meditating, and doing the word of God, we build our lives and structures with the blueprint of God. Before our encounter with the word of God, the visible reality that came to be through the Eternal Word of God is supposed to inform our minds through the senses. Nature is said to be our first teacher in the divine school of life. Failing to pay attention to nature is a refusal to listen to the divine will revealed in creation. The Church’s emphasis on natural law in matters of family, sexuality, social order, and other social structures is based on this understanding. Because a true understanding of nature and natural ordering presents man as the end of creation, any social, political, scientific, or technological advancement that removes from the dignity of the human person is judged to be misguided by the Church. Such warped or misconceived advancement cannot create a conducive structure for the well-being of the human person, whose ultimate end is God himself. The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, which reveals the Father and his divine plan for us, is used to counter such an inimical idea of civilization or advancement.

What the Church does in preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ is to reveal the Father’s will for the human race, redeemed objectively with the precious blood of Jesus Christ, as a guide for various advancements. This is not different from what Yahweh sent Amos the prophet to do in the northern kingdom of Israel. Amaziah the priest ignorantly opposed the prophet from carrying out his God-given mandate, unaware that he was opposing the God of Israel by so doing. His words to Amos reveal his ignorance and how far his understanding of religion falls short of God’s will for his people. “To Amos, Amaziah said, ‘Go away, seer;’ get back to the land of Judah; earn your bread there, do your prophesying in Bethel; this is the royal sanctuary, the national temple.’” The temple of God is royal only to the extent that those who worship there conform themselves to the will of God, who makes his dwelling therein. To do our own will in the temple of God is to rededicate the temple to the idols we set up in place of God.

When we worship God the way we want and not the way he reveals to us, we pollute his temple that is within and without. When the word of God is not resident in us and in our temples or churches, false structures arise within us and without. Without the indwelling of the word of God in us, the sinful structures cause the diminishing and paralysis of human life. The coming of the Son of Man is to restore life to our deformed lives and structures. “Then some people appeared, bringing him a paralytic stretched out on a bed. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, ‘Courage, my child, your sins are forgiven.’” Faith in the word of God gives us a new life in Jesus Christ and a new spirit that makes us participate in the life of the Son of God. This new spirit is a pure desire for the will of the Father. We are able to walk in the light of the word of God and to desire the pure heavenly bread when we walk in the new spirit in communion with the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ destroys the old life of sin and its associated sinful structures by forgiving our sins and purifying us with his precious blood. We must walk consistently in the light of the Gospel for the heavenly structures to rise up within and around us. “The law of the Lord is perfect; it revives the soul. The rule of the Lord is to be trusted; it gives wisdom to the simple.”

Let us pray: O God, who through the grace of adoption chose us to be children of light, grant, we pray, that we may not be wrapped in the darkness of error but always be seen to stand in the bright light of truth. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.    

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