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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