In this section you can find a daily commentary on the Gospel of the Day.

Friday 23 October 2020

Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Word for today
The Gospel of Luke 12:54-59

Adams and Eves

In nature the universal gravitational law already existed before and independently from assessments, decisions, and understanding on the part of mankind. Man is not in a position to use his own intelligence to subvert and alter this law, nor can he decide if it is right or wrong or whether it suits him or not. He can, however, use his own intelligence to learn to live within the system governed by the universal gravitational law, in the most balanced, healthy, harmonious and grateful way that is possible.
The Creator has not given intelligence to man so that he can touch and eat the fruit of the tree of good and bad, so that he can deform it with his actions (touching) and transform it by metabolizing it with his mental bowels  (eating), in such a way as to decide for himself what is vital and mortal, forcing his hand with regard to the laws that govern everything. When Adam and Eve touched and ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and bad, in Hebrew ‘etz ha-da’at-tov ve-ra’, they did not gain the omniscience promised by the demonic Snake, omniscience that however man could never in any case enjoy since it is only God's  prerogative. After having chosen to touch and eat the fruit, man added nothing to his own perfect spiritual perceptive ability to distinguish and perceive what is  vital and mortal - an ability he already had and that the Lord could not refuse to his intelligent children –; now, man finds that he has suffocated and muted that ability. By choosing to eat the fruit of the tree, man forces his hand with regard to the knowledge of good and bad, the knowledge of vital and mortal, the knowledge that God had kept for himself to perfectly and harmoniously govern the survival of all life. Man forced his hand in  an incompetent, childish, arrogant way, out of a spirit of rebellion and not out of love or desire for spiritual growth. After the fall, the Adams and Eves arogated the faculty of deciding what is good and bad, what is vital and mortal and how to act: by claiming this moral autonomy man extinguished his perceptive system, his divine perception  of being created in God's image and likeness and of being God's child and heir. By that choice, the Adams and Eves  attacked God's sovereignty and placed themselves in a position of rebellion against their Creator and they decided to immerse their intelligence into pride and no longer into wisdom. For the first time they tasted the flavor of transgression and not of happiness. This whole disharmonic and separating process gives life – the verb is used here in the most paradoxical way, to something that life did not know – death. The Creator warns Adam: You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and bad, if you do, you will die the same day (Genesis 2:16). It is literally written you will be sentenced to death (literally: you will die of death, in Hebrew mòt tamùt). The Creator does not threaten, but warns that touching and eating the fruit will produce a terrible deformation and set off a previously unexisting process, the process of dying. There is nothing spiritual which, for better or for worse, does not also determine and define the physical dimension, DNA, atoms, and all the forces of nature, for better of for worse. Under Satan's deception, Adam's choice, made in the attempt to usurp the creative power of the Creator, permitted the Adams and Eves to make a mock act of upside down creation which invented a perverse and destructive process, the invention of death. This reality is clearly revealed in The Book of Wisdom 2:24 where it is written : It was the Devil's jealousy that brought death into the world, and those who belong to the Devil are the ones who will die. The choice caused a radical if not immediate change. Eating the fruit did not bring Adam and Eve to instant death, in fact both survived: the text speaks about death as a new previously unknown dimension,  it speaks of it as coming at the end of a sad and miserable life. Touching and eating the fruit, an act of arrogance to claim the right to change what is vital and mortal to accomodate what is pleasureful and advantageous, sets off biophysical and electrochemical processes subjecting man to death.
Jesus gives a strong but honest warning to this generation using His person as the last, decisive warning. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky; why, do you not know how to interpret the present time? Why do you not judge for yourselves the right thing to do? How is it possible that you do not know how to value the time you are living in, and why are you are living in such a miserable way? You really do not understand what is happening, where your choices and actions are taking you.  After making your own decisions for so long as to what is good, bad, vital or mortal, you are incapable of understanding what is happening to you, the mortality of these days and the cosmic storm which is already over your heads. If you are to go with your opponent before a magistrate, make an effort to settle the matter on the way; otherwise your opponent will turn you over to the judge , and the judge hand you over to the constable, and the constable throw you into prison. As you journey on your  earthly path, before you face your  Eternal Judge, try, Adams and Eves, to find an agreement, to settle the matter with one other, a settlement which can stop your rebellion against God. Because otherwise you will be handed over to the constables who will make you repay all of your debts that have damaged mankind and caused misery, hunger, suffering and sadness. Come to your senses, Adams and Eves, before the powers of the heavens, the immeasurable cosmic powers of the universe and of nature which you rebelled against and which you thought you could govern according to your own interests, will put you in a terrible, devastating prison. I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.