Main news for 7 December 2009

Speaking about spiritual life, Paul draws attention to the relationships that form the basis of both the family and the social environment of his era: marital relationships (vv. 18-19), relationships of children with parents (vv. 20-21), and relationships of slaves with their masters (3:22-4:1). The apostle's turn to this theme might be considered quite traditional: after all, the prophets too often turned in their preaching to social themes. But for them it was never an end in itself; the prophets only emphasized the need to follow the Torah not only in personal life but also in public life, considering the Torah an entirely adequate basis for the ordering of society. One could say that Paul too follows this prophetic tradition. But he goes even further. Indeed, the prophets who lived before the coming into the world of the Messiah, Christ, spoke of what was available in their time: the path of righteousness and following the Torah as the means that allowed one to walk that path.

Paul, however, speaks of something greater: the path of the Kingdom, which opened to humanity only with the coming of Christ. It is no accident that he introduces the discussion of relationships in the family and in society with a description of the life of the Kingdom, at the center of which stands the mention of the love that unites its citizens (vv. 12-17). For in the Kingdom love is no longer simply a relationship binding people together, as it is in our world, still not transformed. In the Kingdom, love is also the spiritual environment in which all relationships exist, a kind of spiritual substance without which there is no Kingdom. And the Church, as a community of people living in the Kingdom, is called to be the manifestation of the Kingdom in our transforming world, which has not yet been transformed to the end. It must become for everyone an example showing that it is already possible to build relationships according to the laws of the Kingdom, and that no social structures in themselves are an obstacle to this, provided that people are truly bound to one another by the relationships of love proper to citizens of the Kingdom. Then everyone seeking an alternative to the laws of the untransformed world will see that such an alternative exists, that one can live by the laws of the Kingdom here and now.

Today’s text is quite straightforward. Not because it is easy to accept, but because everyone has parents, and many have wives, husbands, and children. Consequently, it is very easy for us to see how often we fall short of what we read. If things are not right with our parents, then they are not right with our children; if not with our children, then with our wives or husbands—somewhere, something is wrong. Yet there is a precedent: people have succeeded in realizing relationships like these within a family, when an inexhaustible reserve of goodwill made it possible to live in peace and love and, when necessary, in forgiveness. In the Holy Family we see that it is genuinely possible for a human being to live this way. Someone may say, “Of course—Mary and Joseph were raising Jesus, the perfect Man, whereas my children are nothing like that.” Yet this was more likely an additional difficulty in living the life of the Holy Family, for they bore responsibility for the Savior. What parents usually find hardest to accept is that their own child follows his or her own path and chooses it independently. In this case, the parents had to accept Jesus’ way of the Cross and help Him along that way.

If we do everything in the name of the Lord, the word “everything” is subject to certain restrictions. Can we do vile things, in word or deed, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ? Can we kill, steal, commit adultery, or bear false witness?! The very desire to do something in the name of the Lord already helps us in life, because decisions that are plainly wrong are discarded—not because they are incompatible with some formal rules, but because they are incompatible with the very person of Jesus.

Gratitude to God is the very foundation of Christian life. It is in thanksgiving that we are furthest from opposing Him: we do not merely accept His will—as though there were no other choice—but joyfully agree that it is good for us. The whole fullness of human, filial gratitude has already been expressed in the Eucharist, in the prayer and sacrifice of thanksgiving of Jesus Christ. Our greatest “thank you,” therefore, is union with Him and thanksgiving through Him.