Thursday, February 2, 2023

Moral code or Spiritual Integrity?

WORD 2day: Friday, 4th week in Ordinary time

February 3, 2023: Hebrews 13: 1-8; Mark 6:14-29

Is following a moral code an enough condition to be called a Christian? Moral codes are temporal and spatial - that is, what is wrong at one time may not be so another time; what is right in a place may not be so elsewhere! If all of us are formed by and are moving towards the same Divine Being, then can our life style be so subjective, temporal and spatial? That is why Jesus stood firm by Spiritual Integrity rather than a set of mere moral precepts.

Jesus is same, yesterday, today and tomorrow! No time can change what Jesus stood for. The letter to the Hebrews presents to us a set of values which are not merely moral codes but are frameworks for spiritual integrity. Spiritual Integrity is knowing what is right to be done, being convinced of it and living by it, come what may. Even if we have to face extinction from this life, our stand shall not change. Just as John the Baptist who was ready to give up even his life. 

The question now is, how do we know that we are holding on to what is right? Here is where we need to be divinely informed, where we need the grace and the help of the Holy Spirit to hold on to life giving perspectives that are absolute and never changing! Spiritual Integrity is the capacity to live righteous in spite of whatever happens, with no necessity for any reasons or justifications. Spiritual Integrity is being a Christian from the essence of one's being!