Thursday, March 4, 2021

True Christian Love: Are we convinced not to kill?

THE WORD IN LENT: Friday, 2nd week in Lent

March 5, 2021: Genesis 37: 3-4, 12-13, 17-28; Matthew 21: 33-43, 45-46

 


There is a common phrase in today's readings: come let us kill him


At times we target a helpless individual just because the person is different from us or thinks different from us. In spite of knowing well that the person is just and could well be right, we tend to gang up against the person merely because he or she is a hindrance to our way of thinking or our way of being. 


Our words, or judgements, the remarks we pass, the comments we circulate can be really killing the person, worse even than sentencing the person to death. Character assassinations, insensitive treatment of persons, selfish manipulation of individuals and exploitations of all types are some ways we do away with persons around us – they are actually modes of killing. 


The moment a person has an opinion different from mine, the moment a person does not do what I want, the moment a person finds that my way of thinking may not be the ideal and expresses it so, I begin to think that the person is against me! Once I decide that he or she is against me, I am out to destroy that person - in whichever way I can: intellectually, morally, psychologically, socially... only thing that is left is destroying physically, which happens by itself! Is this not killing?


Even the best of preachers, specially the television and media preachers of today, fall prey to this murderous tendency - trying to destroy the other with facts and fallacies, allegations and imaginations. Forget the politicians and businessmen, the so-called "religious" people are the worst of this kind, killing each other in words and in deeds! The call to each of us today is: to restrain ourselves from killing the other. 


Towards forming ourselves in true Christian love, let us ask ourselves: are we really convinced not to kill?

 

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