Monday, February 17, 2014

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time - February 16, 2014

In today's Gospel, Jesus takes the Ten Commandments to a deeper level. Instead of focusing merely on external actions, like murder or adultery, Jesus wants us to examine what is in our hearts, like anger or lust. These internal tendencies are the root cause of the outward sins. Jesus is teaching us to take responsibility for our attitudes as well as our actions.
Some may say that we cannot control our internal thoughts and feelings, or that it is unrealistic to expect us to eliminate anger or lust from our inner selves. But, as Saint Therese of Lisieux put it, Christ would not command the impossible. So it must be possible to purify our hearts and control our thoughts. But we don't have to do this on our own power. Jesus expects great things of us, but he doesn't expect us to do them alone! Through the presence of his Spirit in our hearts, we have divine assistance to accomplish this task.