FOR the measure with which you
measure will in return be
measured out to you.” (Lk 6,38)
For those with Christian faith, these words, which are
considered divine and redemptive or perfective of our human nature,
describe to us how we ought to behave with one another and ultimately
with God.
A similar passage is given in the gospel of St. Mark. “In
what measure you shall mete, it shall be measured to you again, and
more shall be given to you.” (4,24) In another part of the gospel, our
Lord promised to give a hundredfold.
Even pure human wisdom, uninfluenced by Christian faith,
cannot help but echo the same idea as can be gleaned in the famous
Golden Rule or the Ethic of Reciprocity: “One should treat others as
one would like others to treat oneself.”
We have to overflow with love, with goodness, with
compassion and understanding, if we too want to receive a constructive
tsunami of love, goodness, compassion and understanding from God and
from others. The gospel, in fact, is very graphic about this. It says:
“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Stop
judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not
be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and gifts will be
given to you.” (Lk 6,36-37)
Then it ends with a wallop by saying: “A good measure,
packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into
your lap.” In other words, we have to outdo ourselves in love and
goodness. For this is what loving is all about. It goes all the way,
without measure nor calculation. It has to go to the brim and flow
over.
Same ideas are mentioned in many parts of the gospel. In
the Lord’s prayer, for example, we are told to say: “Forgive us our
sins as we forgive those who sinned against us.”
The reason for this divine indication is, first of all,
because we are made out of love and for love. And love is manifested
in mercy, patience and all the signs of goodness.
In short, we affirm our dignity as image and likeness of
God, as persons and as children of God, when we overflow with
goodness, just as God is pure goodness and love himself.
That is the reason why we have to go to God to know how to
love. We did not invent love or create goodness. God has loved us
first before we learn to love. And this divine love is given to us and
perfected in us when God sent his Son and later the Holy Spirit.
The Son, Jesus Christ, showed us the scope and range of
the love proper to us. That’s why he summarized all the commandments
by giving us a new commandment, which is “to love one another as I
have loved you.”
And how did Christ love us? All the way, by giving his
life to us. Remember his saying: “Greater love than this no man has,
that a man lays down his life for his friends.” (Jn 15,13)
God will always love us. Other men may fail to return our
love with love. But even in that situation, God in Christ and in the
Holy Spirit shows us how to keep on loving. St. John of the Cross
expresses it very well when he said: “Where there is no love, put love
and you will harvest love.”
That love of Christ by offering his life on the cross
captures all the sinfulness of man and pays for it all, and then gives
us the way to rise with a new life from our state of alienation from
God our Father.
This is something we have to understand very well, because
our current environment, where faith is ignored and reason and the
senses are all we have to rely on, simply laughs and mocks at this
truth about us and our life here on earth.
As Pope Benedict said recently, many people are losing
faith in God and therefore are also losing their sense of sin. They
simply rely on a psychological or social understanding of right and
wrong. It seems the sense of good and evil now is not anymore referred
to God.
This same love is offered to us by the Holy Spirit, who
makes Christ alive in us, enabling us not only to remember God’s words
but also to replicate Christ’s very own life in us.
Let´s be generous!
measured out to you.” (Lk 6,38)
For those with Christian faith, these words, which are
considered divine and redemptive or perfective of our human nature,
describe to us how we ought to behave with one another and ultimately
with God.
A similar passage is given in the gospel of St. Mark. “In
what measure you shall mete, it shall be measured to you again, and
more shall be given to you.” (4,24) In another part of the gospel, our
Lord promised to give a hundredfold.
Even pure human wisdom, uninfluenced by Christian faith,
cannot help but echo the same idea as can be gleaned in the famous
Golden Rule or the Ethic of Reciprocity: “One should treat others as
one would like others to treat oneself.”
We have to overflow with love, with goodness, with
compassion and understanding, if we too want to receive a constructive
tsunami of love, goodness, compassion and understanding from God and
from others. The gospel, in fact, is very graphic about this. It says:
“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Stop
judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not
be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and gifts will be
given to you.” (Lk 6,36-37)
Then it ends with a wallop by saying: “A good measure,
packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into
your lap.” In other words, we have to outdo ourselves in love and
goodness. For this is what loving is all about. It goes all the way,
without measure nor calculation. It has to go to the brim and flow
over.
Same ideas are mentioned in many parts of the gospel. In
the Lord’s prayer, for example, we are told to say: “Forgive us our
sins as we forgive those who sinned against us.”
The reason for this divine indication is, first of all,
because we are made out of love and for love. And love is manifested
in mercy, patience and all the signs of goodness.
In short, we affirm our dignity as image and likeness of
God, as persons and as children of God, when we overflow with
goodness, just as God is pure goodness and love himself.
That is the reason why we have to go to God to know how to
love. We did not invent love or create goodness. God has loved us
first before we learn to love. And this divine love is given to us and
perfected in us when God sent his Son and later the Holy Spirit.
The Son, Jesus Christ, showed us the scope and range of
the love proper to us. That’s why he summarized all the commandments
by giving us a new commandment, which is “to love one another as I
have loved you.”
And how did Christ love us? All the way, by giving his
life to us. Remember his saying: “Greater love than this no man has,
that a man lays down his life for his friends.” (Jn 15,13)
God will always love us. Other men may fail to return our
love with love. But even in that situation, God in Christ and in the
Holy Spirit shows us how to keep on loving. St. John of the Cross
expresses it very well when he said: “Where there is no love, put love
and you will harvest love.”
That love of Christ by offering his life on the cross
captures all the sinfulness of man and pays for it all, and then gives
us the way to rise with a new life from our state of alienation from
God our Father.
This is something we have to understand very well, because
our current environment, where faith is ignored and reason and the
senses are all we have to rely on, simply laughs and mocks at this
truth about us and our life here on earth.
As Pope Benedict said recently, many people are losing
faith in God and therefore are also losing their sense of sin. They
simply rely on a psychological or social understanding of right and
wrong. It seems the sense of good and evil now is not anymore referred
to God.
This same love is offered to us by the Holy Spirit, who
makes Christ alive in us, enabling us not only to remember God’s words
but also to replicate Christ’s very own life in us.
Let´s be generous!
No comments:
Post a Comment