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

Thursday 3 December 2020

First Week of Advent

Word for today
The Gospel of Matthew 7:21.24-27

How it works

Jesus tells us, in a simple and unequivocal way, the key to how everything in life and history can work or not work, can last or disappear.
Jesus says that even before being a man of faith, whoever reads, listens to, and attempts to get to know the Gospel in order to put it into practice is a man of undeniable intelligence and wisdom, of deep interior insight, and completely logical. He is a man who is committed to not permitting what he has built during his lifetime go to ruin. He is a man who cares about his life and his history. He does not want to see what he has built during his/her lifetime be dragged away by the unavoidable storms and the overflowing rivers of life. The words of the Gospel are thus founded in Truth and Light and independently of a person's religious approach, if those words are listened to and practised, they are the guarantee that what one has built in his/her lifetime life will not  go to ruin.
With that same clarity Jesus says that listening to His Word without putting it into practice is synonymous of foolishness, madness, insanity. The Greek word used in the Gospel to describe this state of mind is moròs, that is "insane". Moròs is a fool, unreasonable, crazy, careless. We are talking about a mental attitude of nonsense, that is unexplicable.
According to Jesus, having the Gospel at hand, knowing it but not practising it, is an act of madness, of non-understanding, an act of non-love towards what we have built by hard work and dedication. Not trying to put the Gospel into practice is synonymous to Jesus of atheism, of not having a religion. It is simply an act of non-love towards ourselves and towards all that we care about, an act of illogical insanity. If we do not put the Gospel into practice, all that we achieve in terms of our personal fulfillment, our relationships, our careers, our family, in the context of our emotional, cultural, and political life will fall stone over stone and will go to ruin. Jesus reminds us that the words of the Gospel are the greatest and the most reliable, the most effective working instructions for use of life.