GOSPEL: Matthew 10, 26-33
Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini,
broadcast on Vatican Radio
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Don
Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading ...
Jesus instructed the Twelve as follows: ‘Do not be afraid of them
therefore. For everything that is now covered will be uncovered, and everything
now hidden will be made clear. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the
daylight; what you hear in whispers, proclaim from the housetops.
‘Do not be afraid of those who
kill the body but cannot kill the soul; fear him rather who can destroy both
body and soul in hell. Can you not buy two sparrows for a penny? And yet not
one falls to the ground without your Father knowing. Why, every hair on your
head has been counted. So there is no need to be afraid; you are worth more
than hundreds of sparrows.
‘So if anyone declares himself
for me in the presence of men, I will declare myself for him in the presence of
my Father in heaven. But the one who disowns me in the presence of men, I will
disown in the presence of my Father in heaven.
The Gospel of the Lord: Praise
to you Lord Jesus Christ
Kieran’s summary . . . The passage this week from Matthew’s
Gospel speaks about fear. Fear is often at the centre of
humanity’s most desperate acts and errant behaviour.
But it is important to distinguish fear of the Lord from
fear of a purely human sort. Fear of the human sort can
give rise to attitudes of slavery or violence. It causes us to
act in desperate ways to maintain our physical wellbeing
or security. Jesus tells us, however, that we should not give
in to fear of this sort precisely for the reason that the worst
that can happen is that our physical bodies might be destroyed.
Fear of the Lord, by contrast, is holy and good because it is
directed towards salvation of our souls. Say that my body
is sick but my soul is joyful and illuminated, then I am
living a blessed existence. But if my body is in perfect
condition whilst my soul is degenerate, then I am living
a horrible existence. We are living in an age when our
beauty, health and wellbeing are prioritized to such an
extent that we end up living an infantile self-obsessed
existence. The more we are focussed on our own wellbeing,
the more closed we are to what really matters. What really
matters is that our soul lives a life of love, which involves
turning away from oneself towards others. It is healthy and
good that I have this fear of the Lord which makes me tremble
at the prospect of not living a life of love. I am presented with
the opportunity to use this fear in a constructive manner every
time that I have to choose between my own physical wellbeing
and my salvation. When a couple learns that the new child who
is going to arrive in the family has Down Syndrome, then
they have to choose between their own comfort/convenience/
wellbeing and living a life of love. Whole nations have
eliminated Down Syndrome because these countries place
comfort and wellbeing before love. Who ever heard of a
Down Syndrome child who waged war or directed organised
crime? When we put the health of the body before the health
of the soul, then our health and worldly success become places
of destruction and despair. Suffering and ill health, by contrast,
can become moments of grace when we make the health of the
soul our priority.
Jesus tells us not to fear men, because the most they can
do is kill our bodies. Isn’t that bad enough? Yes, it is, but the salvation of
our souls is infinitely more important.
"Don't be afraid of those who kill the
body, but have no power to kill the soul." These words, in phase two or
three of a pandemic, sound particularly relevant. We know what "killing
the body" is, but perhaps we don't have clear ideas about what
"killing the soul" involves. The text continues: "Be afraid
rather of the one who has the power to make the soul and the body perish in Hell".
The word "perish" corresponds to ruin, to the complete unravelling of
all that we are. The passage began with the phrase: "Do not be afraid of
men". This is the theme that Jesus wishes to focus on: the threat that men
can produce cannot go beyond the physical. Men have no power to kill anything
other than the body. And, understandably, someone might say: “Well, isn’t that
bad enough?” Yes it is, but we're not talking about small things here. What we
have to understand is that the loss of the soul is even more devastating. Physical
pain is a very, very difficult thing, but loneliness and lack of love also make
good health insufficient and unbearable. Also, we have seen the saints and
others who shone like lights in the darkness of suffering and made sense of
everything.
The most important moments of life
are when we have to choose between body and soul, between wellbeing and
salvation, between our own comfort or the call to forgo comfort in order to
love others.
One of the most important crossroads of our
existence is when we are presented with the choice between the soul and the
body. Sometimes we do not perceive that this option is in front of us because
we are distracted by temptation, but it occurs every time we have to choose
between comfort and love, between health and salvation. And this choice happens
to all of us sooner or later. Sometimes in a tragic way: welcoming a sick child
into the family means bringing someone into your life who will give you so many
problems and inconveniences. But it means choosing to love.
If I do not make the soul my priority, then my worldly health
and success will be nothing but places of self-destruction
They say that there are entire nations where,
due to the practice of prenatal screening, Down Syndrome has practically
disappeared completely. Is this how to build a better society? Has anyone heard
of a person suffering from Down Syndrome who has ever waged a war, or organized
an economic system based on the hunger of poor countries, or guided organized
crime? No, generally the people who do these things are healthy people. We are
eliminating the least dangerous people. What kind of strategy is this? There
are no dictators or oppressors of people with serious disabilities. Had Hitler
been disabled, history would have been different. No, those who oppress humanity are people with
a healthy body but a hellish soul. It all changes when a person begins to
understand that his priority ought to be the care of his soul, and that if he
does not do that, his health, money and success will be nothing but places of
self-destruction. In tribulation you often find out what matters most. In
suffering you often become a better person, if your priority is the right one:
the heart, the soul.
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