Today’s scriptures for mass remind us just how fragile our salvation really is. No one should be too confident about going to heaven, in spite of attending mass every week, fulfilling the holy days of obligations, praying at adoration, saying the rosary, or our knowledge of scripture and the lives of the saints. There are many other outward ways we publicly demonstrate our faith in God too, like serving in the church as readers, ushers, lectors, musicians, etc. We can do all these good things, but it will be for nothing if we never really quite understood what it was all about. That’s what happened to the scribes and Pharisees. Outwardly, they did everything they were supposed to do, but inwardly their hearts were not right. Jesus tells us in today’s gospel this is really the most important thing, what kind of heart we have. If we don’t have a better heart than the scribes and Pharisees, we won’t make it into heaven.
The gospel today should really hit home for most of us. Every single human being has experienced the emotion of anger. Words kill the spirit. We say things in anger that can never be taken back. Other people may eventually forgive us for saying what we did and put it behind them, but our hurtful words are not easily, if ever, forgotten. For many of us, our parents taught us to “think before you act”. We could use a reminder of that as adults as well. Hurtful words can live in our hearts for a lifetime sometimes. Parents can sometimes say something hurtful to their small children, that the children will remember the rest of their lives. A small act of kindness is never forgotten, but neither are the hurtful words we say either.
Jesus said in the gospel that, “whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment … whoever says, “You fool, will be liable to fiery Gehenna. Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” Can you picture actually doing this? Instead of going to mass, go apologize to someone that we’ve hurt instead? We get out of doing this a little too easily, thinking that the Penitential Act we say at mass has us covered. We may have even been taught that the Eucharist removes venial sins so we don’t have to worry about them. Perhaps we have been a little lax in our thinking though. Outward prayers and worship does not heal the internal hurts we have inflicted on other people. We may feel better, but the other person may still be hurting.
Human nature hasn’t changed over the past two thousand years. Many people get mad and call each other names when they get in a fight. Things can deteriorate pretty badly during an argument sometimes. Jesus in his infinite wisdom knew that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure though.
Did you realize that gospel today is the basis of the Catholic belief in purgatory?
“Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court. Otherwise your opponent will hand you over to the judge, and the judge will hand you over to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.” ~ Mt 5:25-26
If we die with these unresolved issues, the things we did to hurt other people that we never apologized or made it up to them, then we will satisfy the divine justice when we die. Purgatory sounds like a lot worse of a place to repent and satisfy God’s justice, than it would be to just do this while we are still alive. It might be a lot less painless now. To say “I’m sorry” and make peace with the one we hurt might be a little easier to do now, than later.
If we don’t learn to curb our words we can even jeopardize our eternal salvation. That is what the first reading for mass today is warning us about too. It would be a shame to lead a good, holy, devout life for most of our lives and then ruin our chance for eternal salvation later in life. There are some older people who turn bitter in their old age, after doing all the right things for most of their lives. Let us try not to become one of them. The scriptures today are a warning, yet a blessing in disguise.
Daily Mass Readings:
Exodus 18: 21-28 / Psalm 120: 1-2, 3-4, 5-7a, 7bc-8 / Matthew 5: 20-26
