From: Colossians 3:12-17
Progress in the Spiritual Life
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Commentary:
12-13. Putting on the new nature is not just an external action, like
putting on different clothes. It is a transfiguration involving the whole
person—soul and body, mind and will. This interior change begins
to operate when one makes a firm resolution to lead a fully Christian
life; but it calls for an on-going effort, day in day out, to practice
all the virtues. “Conversion is something momentary; sanctification is
the work of a lifetime. The divine seed of charity, which God has sown
in our souls, wants to grow, to express itself in action, to yield results
which continually coincide with what God wants. Therefore, we must
be ready to begin again, to find again—in new situations—the light and
the stimulus of our first conversion” ([St] J. Escriva, “Christ Is Passing
By”, 58).
The virtues which the Apostle lists here as characteristic of the new
man are all expressions, in one way or another, of charity, which
“binds everything together in total harmony” (v. 14). Meekness,
patience, forgiveness and gratefulness all reflect an essential virtue
—humility. Only a humble person can be forgiving and truly
appreciative, because only he realizes that everything he has comes
from God. This realization leads him to be understanding towards his
neighbor, forgiving him as often as needs be; by acting in this way he
is proving the genuineness of his faith and love.
See the note on Eph 4:20-24.
14. The comparison of the new nature to a new outfit is extended here
by a further metaphor: charity is the belt which keeps everything
together. Without it the other virtues would fall apart: supernatural
virtue could not survive (cf. 1 Cor 13:1-3). St Francis de Sales uses
simple examples to explain this truth: “Without cement and mortar,
which knits the bricks together and strengthens the walls, the entire
building is bound to collapse; a human body would simply disintegrate
unless it had nerves, muscles and tendons; and if charity were absent,
virtues simply could not stay together” (St Francis de Sales, “Treatise
on the Love of God”, 11, 9).
“Love, as the bond of perfection and fullness of the law (cf. Col 3:14;
Rom 13:10), governs, imbues, and perfects all the means of
sanctification” (Vatican II, “Lumen Gentium”, 42). Therefore, “if we
want to achieve holiness—in spite of personal shortcomings and
miseries which will last as long as we live—we must make an effort,
with God’s grace, to practice charity, which is the fullness of the law
and the bond of perfection. Charity is not something abstract, it
entails a real, complete, self-giving to the service of God and all men
—to the service of that God who speaks to us in the silence of prayer
and in the hubbub of the world and of those people whose existence is
interwoven with our own. By living charity—Love—we live all the human
and supernatural virtues required of a Christian” ([St] J. Escriva,
“Conversations”, 62).
15. The “peace of Christ” is that which flows from the new order of
grace which he has established; grace gives man direct access to
God and therefore to that peace he so much yearns for. “Thou has
made us for thyself and our hearts are restless till they rest in thee” (St
Augustine, “Confessions”, 1, 1). This is not a peace the world can give
(cf. Jn 14:27), because it is not a function of purely material progress
or well-being, nor does it derive from the sort of peace that should
obtain among nations. “Peace on earth, which men of every era have
most eagerly yearned for, can be firmly established only if the order
laid down by God is dutifully observed” (John XXIII, “Pacem In Terris”,
1).
The peace of Christ, then, is “a peace that comes from knowing that
our Father God loves us, and that we are made one with Christ. It
results from being under the protection of the Virgin, our Lady, and
assisted by St Joseph. This is the great light that illuminates our lives.
In the midst of difficulties and of our personal failings, it encourages
us to keep up our effort” ([St] J. Escriva, “Christ Is Passing By”, 22).
16. “The word of Christ”: the whole corpus of our Lord’s teachings,
of which the Apostles are accredited witnesses. This should be ever-
present to the Christian’s soul and “dwell...richly” in him, imbuing
everything he does: the word of Christ is the best nourishment of one’s
life of prayer and an inexhaustible source of practical teaching; and it
is to be found in the first instance in the books of the New Testament.
St John Chrysostom says that these writings “are teachers which
never cease to instruct us [...]. Open these books. What a treasury
of good remedies they contain! [...]. All you need do is look at the
book, read it and remember well the wise teachings therein. The
source of all our evils is our ignorance of the sacred books” (”Hom.
on Col, ad loc.”).
St Paul also reminds us that our appreciation should lead us to glorify
the Lord with songs of joy and gratitude. We can use ready-made hymns
for this purpose, and also the Psalms, which the Church has always used
in its liturgy to praise God and to nourish the spiritual life. “Just as the
mouth savors good food, so does the heart savor the Psalms” (St Bernard,
“Sermons on the Song of Songs”, 7, 5).
See the note on Eph 5:19.
17. All genuinely human things can and should be sanctified (cf. 1 Cor
10:31), by being done perfectly and for love of God.
The Second Vatican Council has recalled this teaching: “Lay people
[...], while meeting their human obligations in the ordinary conditions
of life, should not separate their union with Christ from their ordinary
life; through the very performance of their tasks, which are God’s will
for them, they actually promote the growth of their union with him. This
is the path along which lay people must advance, fervently, joyfully”
(”Apostolicam Actuositatem”, 4).
This teaching was very much part of the message and life of the founder
of Opus Dei: “I assure you, my children, that when a Christian carries
out with love the most insignificant everyday action, that action
overflows with the transcendence of God. That is why I have told you
repeatedly, and hammered away once and again on the idea, that the
Christian vocation consists in making heroic verse out of the prose of
each day. Heaven and earth seem to merge, my children, on the horizon.
But where they really meet is in your hearts, when you sanctify your
everyday lives” (”Conversations”, 116).
The Second Vatican Council also sees in this passage of Colossians a
basis for ecumenical dialogue with non-Catholics: “And if in moral matters
there are many Christians who do not always understand the Gospel in
the same way as Catholics, and do not admit the same solutions for the
more difficult problems of modern society, they nevertheless want to cling
to Christ’s word as the source of Christian virtue and to obey the command
of the Apostle: [Col 3:17 follows]” (”Unitatis Redintegratio”, 23).
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.
From: Luke 6:27-38
Love of Enemies
[32] “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For
even sinners love those who love them. [33] And if you do good to
those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners
do the same. [34] And if you lend to those from whom you hope to
receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to
receive as much again. [35] But love your enemies, and do good, and
lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and
you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and
the selfish. [36] Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.
[37] “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will
not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; [38] give, and it
will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together,
running over, will be put into your lap. For the measure you give will
be the measure you get back.”
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Commentary:
27. “In loving our enemies there shines forth in us some likeness to
God our Father, who, by the death of His Son, ransomed from everlasting
perdition and reconciled to Himself the human race, which previously
was most unfriendly and hostile to Him” (”St. Pius V Catechism”, IV,
14, 19). Following the example of God our Father, we must desire for
everyone (even those who say they are our enemies) eternal life, in the
first place; additionally, a Christian has a duty to respect and
understand everyone without exception, because of his or her intrinsic
dignity as a human person, made in the image and likeness of the
Creator.
28. Jesus Christ teaches us by example that this is a real precept and
not just a pious recommendation; even when nailed to the cross He
prayed to His Father for those who had brought Him to such a pass:
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Lk 23:34). In
imitation of the Master, St Stephen, the first martyr of the Church,
when he was being stoned, prayed to our Lord not to hold the sin
against his persecutors (cf. Acts 7:60). In the liturgy of Good Friday
the Church offers prayers and suffrages to God on behalf of those
outside the Church, asking Him to give them the grace of faith; to
release from their ignorance those who do not know Him; to give Jews
the light to the truth; to bring non-Catholic Christians, linked by
true charity, into full communion with our Mother the Church.
29. Our Lord gives us more examples to show us how we should act if
we want to imitate the mercy of God. The first has to do with one of what
are traditionally called the “spiritual works of mercy”—forgiving injuries
and being patient with other people’s defects. This is what He means
in the first instance about turning the other cheek.
To understand what our Lord is saying here, St. Thomas comments that
“Sacred Scripture needs to be understood in the light of the example of
Christ and the saints. Christ did not offer the cheek to be struck in
the house of Annas (Jn 18:22ff), nor did St. Paul when, as we are told
in the Acts of the Apostles, he was beaten in Philippi (Acts 16:22f).
Therefore, we should not take it that Christ literally meant that you
should offer the other cheek to some to hit you; what He was referring
to was your interior disposition; that is, if necessary we should be
ready not to be intolerant of anyone who hurts us, and we should be
ready to put up with this kind of treatment, or worse than that. That
was how the Lord acted when He surrendered His body to death”
(”Commentary on St John”, 18, 37).
36. The model of mercy which Christ sets before us is God Himself, of
whom St. Paul says, ‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us
in all our afflictions” (2 Cor 1:3-4). “The first quality of this virtue”, Fray
Luis de Granada explains, “is that it makes men like God and like
the most glorious thing in Him, His mercy (Lk 6:36). For certainly
the greatest perfection a creature can have is to be like his Creator,
and the more like Him he is, the more perfect he is. Certainly one
of the things which is most appropriate to God is mercy, which is
what the Church means when it says that prayer: ‘Lord God, to
whom it is proper to be merciful and forgiving...’. It says that this
is proper to God, because just as a creature, as creature, is
characteristically poor and needy (and therefore characteristically
receives and does not give), so, on the contrary, since God is
infinitely rich and powerful, to Him alone does it belong to give and
not to receive, and therefore it is appropriate for Him to be merciful
and forgiving” (”Book of Prayer and Meditation”, third part, third
treatise).
This is the rule a Christian should apply: be compassionate towards
other people’s afflictions as if they were one’s own, and try to remedy
them. The Church spells out this rule by giving us a series of
corporal works of mercy (visiting and caring for the sick, giving food
to the hungry, drink to the thirsty...) and spiritual works of mercy
(teaching the ignorant, correcting the person who has erred, forgiving
injuries...): cf. “St Pius X Catechism”, 944f.
We should also show understanding towards people who are in error:
“Love and courtesy of this kind should not, of course, make us
indifferent to truth and goodness. Love, in fact, impels the followers
of Christ to proclaim to all men the truth which saves. But we must
distinguish between the error (which must always be rejected) and the
person in error, who never loses his dignity as a person even though he
flounders amid false or inadequate religious ideas. God alone is the
judge and searcher of hearts; He forbids us to pass judgment on the
inner guilt of others” (Vatican II, “Gaudium Et Spes”, 28).
38. We read in Sacred Scripture of the generosity of the widow of
Zarephath, whom God asked to give food to Elijah the prophet even
though she had very little left; He then rewarded her generosity by
constantly renewing her supply of meal and oil (1 kings 17:9ff). The
same sort of thing happened when the boy supplied the five loaves
and two fish which our Lord multiplied to feed a huge crowd of people
(cf. Jn 6:9)—a vivid example of what God does when we give Him
whatever we have, even if it does not amount to much.
God does not let Himself be outdone in generosity: “Go, generously
and like a child ask Him, ‘What can You mean to give me when You
ask me for “this”?’” ([St] J. Escriva, “The Way”, 153). However much
we give God in this life, He will give us more in life eternal.
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.