It is in the background of solidarity that we must understand sin and love. Sin destroys the whole Creation as love builds it up. Sin cannot be spoken of without placing it in the context of love and of solidarity.

                                                               -       LOVE       -

As I have explained; God is Love and Creation is the result of God sharing His love. We are created through and for Love. It is love that creates. I have also explained what true love is for Christians. It is the power to empty myself of my own world, enter into the world of the other, see and feel the need of the other and come to his/her aid even to the point of laying down my life. Love is not a feeling. Feeling of love is important. It is an outward expression of a deeper reality. Love in its depths need not be a feeling. It is something deeper. It is a state of being which acts upon my attitudes which in turn flow into acts of creativity: of helping people, of building up. Thus Saint John says, "... Let us not love in word or speech but in deed and in truth". - 1 John 3:8 - 

If there is no love in me, how can I empty myself of love for others? I cannot empty myself of what I do not have, or I cannot give what I do not have. Hence, Christian teaching insists on God's Love being poured into us through the Holy Spirit that enables us to love - Romans 5:5; 2 Corinthians 5:11-6:10 - God takes the initiative - 1 John 4:19 - How do we know this? We know from human reasoning that it is through His Creation. We know this also from "Revelations" in the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible. We know this especially when God became Man in Jesus Christ. When Mankind sinned, God in His infinite Love did not abandon us but sent His son to save us from sin and gave His life for us. "In this the love of God was made manifest among us, so that we might live through him. In this Love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His son to be the expiation for our sins." - 1 John 4:9-10 - 

Jesus Christ is the manifestation of God's infinite love not only by His becoming Man but also by His dying on the Cross for us - Galatians 2:20; John 3:16 - It is impossible for the human mind to grasp this. How can the infinite be finite? And how can God, the all powerful, die on the Cross? Hence for a number of non-Christians, Jesus Christ, who claimed divinity, is a "stumbling block". Yet, God is God. If God cannot do what the finite human mind thinks impossible, He would no longer be God because He would be limited by our small human mind. God being Infinite and all powerful (omnipotent), did what was impossible for the human mind. By this, He proves that He is God - doing the impossible. It is God's infinite love that makes him do the impossible - John 3:6 - as Man sees it.

God's love equals His infinity. He produces another impossibility. He gives himself to us as food in the Eucharist. Again this is mind-boggling. Yet He does it each time in the Eucharist because He is all powerful. Nothing is impossible to God. It is here that we differ from many Protestants-Christians. We  believe in the true presence of Christ, the Son of God, in the Eucharist. Many Protestants believe only in its symbolic nature. ( More of this later. ) Our Catholic understanding of God as revealed to us by God Himself is in perfect harmony with the nature of God. He is infinite. Therefore He can do anything, even the impossible. He is Love. Therefore His Love is expressed for us to the limit beyond which there is nothing He became like us to teach us how to live as He created us. He died for us. "Greater love has no Man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." - John 15:13 - And He gave Himself to us as food in the Eucharist to strengthen us so that we can live in accordance with our created nature. Beyond this expression of Love, nothing is left.

I believe that our Catholic understanding of Jesus Christ as God's manifestation of His unlimited Love for us, His creatures, is the most reasonable. It is in tune with our logic argument of what God is. It is consonant with God's nature as He is and consistent with the need of us poor humans. God supplies the need in us in a tangible form, the only way through which we can grasp His unconditional Love.

Rightly, then, Saint Paul says, "Love is the fulfilling of all laws." - Romans 13:10 - It is creative. It builds up the Christian community - 1 Corinthians 8:1 - Love unites all virtues - Colossians 3:14 -  It inspires Christians to labour - 1 Thessalonians 1:3 - it bears with inconvenience in order not to hurt his fellow Christians - Romans 14:15 - it helps the poor - 2 Corinthians 8:7f - it welcomes back a repentant sinner - 2 Corinthians 2:8-10 - Saint Paul sums this up in his beautiful hymn to love - 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 - Nothing is of value without love. Although Saint Paul speaks of love most of the time in the context of the Christian community, he does not confine it only to the Christian community. Like Saint John, he extends it to all.

Saint John sees love as coming from the love that the Father has for His Son and vice versa. This love is the Spirit. God is Love. This love creates so that "he (any person) who loves, God lives in him/her" - 1 John 4:16 - Love, as Saint John sees it, is One. There is no separation between love of God and love of others. "If anyone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother (any person) he is a liar" - 1 John 4:20 - This is an echo of Jesus' new commandment: "Love one another as I have loved you."

                                                                   -       Sin        -

If God is Love, and if all is created through and for love, sin must be its opposite. As love creates, sin destroys. Saint John says, "No one born of God commits sin; for God's nature abides in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God." - 1 John 3:9 - By this, Saint John does not mean that we have no sins. He says, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves..." - 1 John 1:18 - Obviously, he is talking here of a principle. If God's nature, the fullness of love, is in us, surely we cannot sin. If we sin, then we do not have the fullness of love. Sin, as Saint John sees it, is the opposite of Love. Saint John sees sin first as state of lack of love in Man. From this, all acts of sins and sins of omission come. Because I do not have enough love, I do not help others (omission), I speak badly about others, and do all sorts of evil to them (sinful acts). So Jesus, who came to save us, goes to the root of the problem: He takes away our state of lack love by pouring into us His love. Saint John makes John the Baptist say, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin (singular) of the world!" - John 1:29 - In the Synoptic Gospels, sin is generally used in the plural (sins). John prefers the singular (13 times in the singular and 3 times in plural). This itself is significant. The use of the singular is appropriate because John sees sin as the denial of love - a state of being in Man. All sins come from this state of lack of love (sin). This is profound biblical understanding of sin. It goes beyond what most people define sin as "doing what I know is wrong". The latter is only the consequence of a state of sinfulness. If sin is "doing what I know is wrong" there must be long periods when I am sinless. Yet the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible tells us that we are always sinful before God. And now about the times when I fail to help others? Strictly I have "done nothing." Yet it is a sin because I have not enough love to impel me to help others. Sin, the opposite of love, therefore is a state of a lack of love in my being from which comes acts of sins and non-action due to the lack of love (sins of omission).

The Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible use a number of words which express the state. I will mention only the two most commonly used words and therefore, the most important. Anomia (Greek) Matthew 7:23; 13:41; 24:12; 1 John 3:4; Romans 6:19; 1 Corinthians 9:21; etc. Nomos, in Greek, is Law. Anomia means lawlessness. It is a state of rebellion against the law of God. In the Old Testament it is the Jewish Torah. In the New Testament, it is the law of Christ to love, as explained.

Harmatia. This word is the most frequently employed word in Saint Paul for sin (62 times, of which 48 times are found in his letter to the Romans). It has the same root meaning with the Hebrew word of the Old Testament het'hattat. It signifies "to miss the mark". It is a word taken from hunting. When a man has missed his prey in shooting, he has missed the mark (harmatia). And what is "the mark" that Man has been created by God; for love, as we have seen. Hence for Saint Paul, harmatia or sin is not an act but something internal and stable in Man, almost a personal force that is open rebellion against God.

It is a state of rebellion that brings chaos (anomia). Harmatia has entered into mankind through Adam's sin and exercises its deadly works (which brings death) through the Torah. All acts of sin come from this state. It permeates the whole human race (universal) - Romans 5; 3:22-23 - Adam is seen by Saint Paul as the sum total of humanity in sin - Romans 3:20; Galatians 3:22 - the idea of "corporate personality" or solidarity. Just as love builds or creates community, sin destroys community. Love and sin affect, for good or evil the universe, others and death (the total destruction) - Romans 6:23 - This is the solidarity aspect of sin that we spoke in chapter one.

Original sin is this state of lack of love into which everyone is born. It permeates not only the social sinful environment but it affects the depth of my being as a human (in the fullest sense explained above). Adam, who sinned and brought on sin into humanity, is regarded by Saint Paul as the sum total of this fallen humanity. Christ came to take away this state of lack of love by pouring into us His love: "Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world". This is why Christ Jesus is called the second Adam - 1 Corinthians 15:22, 45-47 - Just as the first Adam brought sin into humanity by disobedience, the second Adam brought salvation through obedience - Romans 5:19 - Just as the first Adam is considered as the sum total of fallen humanity, Christ is the sum total of the redeemed humanity. Just as the sin of Adam penetrates into the being of Man, the love of Christ enters into the being of Man and removes this state of sinfulness, that is if Man freely allows Christ to do so and cooperates with His grace or love. God's love or grace never destroys Man's freedom. Since as I have said, freedom and love are two sides of the same coin, if love were to take away freedom, love would also be destroyed. In other words "Love would not be love if it were not free." But if love is accepted freely and grows in a person, freedom will also grow. This is why Saint Paul says, "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" - 2 Corinthians 3:17 -  

Thus, Love and sin can only be fully grasped if one has understood the notion of solidarity. Amen!

By His Grace Bishop Paul Tan Chee Ing, S.J.   -   Straight to Catholics   - 

-   WELCOME TO SACRED SCRIPTURE / WORD OF GOD / HOLY BIBLE READER'S COMMUNITY   - 

Just as God originally inspired the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible, He has used this means to preserve His Word for future generations. But behind the writing lay periods of time when these messages were circulated in spoken form. [Oral Tradition] The stories of the patriarchs were passed from generation to generation by word of mouth before they were written. [Written Tradition] The messages of the prophets were delivered orally before they were fixed in writing. Narratives of the life and ministry of Christ Jesus were repeated orally for two or three decades before they were given written form.

Wishing you, 'Happy Reading', and may God, the Father, the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ, fills your heart, mind, thoughts, and grants you: The Holy Spirit, that is, Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Piety, Fortitude, Fear of the Lord, and also His fruits of the Holy Spirit, that is, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Trustfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. Amen! God blessing be upon you!

Why do you call Me, "Lord, Lord" and not do what I say?' "Everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words and acts on them - I will show you what he/she is like. He/She is like a man/woman who when he/she built his/her house dug, deep, and laid the foundations on rock; when the river was in flood it bore down on that house but could not shake it, it was so well built. But the one who listens and does nothing is like the man/woman who built his/her house on soil, with no foundations: as soon as the river bore down on it, it collapsed; and what a ruin that house became!" - Luke 6:46-49 - 

If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ Jesus, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to it function. So the body grows until it has built itself up, in love." - Ephesians 4:15-16 - 

I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now. But when the spirit of truth comes, he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself, but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come. He/She will glorify me, since all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine." - John 16:12-15 -       

              -       MYSYERY       -       TURNING FROM THE ROAD OF EVIL INTENT        - 

Every human being at his/her birth has everything to learn. His/Her mind is a kind of blank slate on which truths can be written. How much he/she will learn will depend upon: (1) how clean he/she keeps his/her slate. (2) the nobility and wisdom of his/her teachers. The cleanliness of the slate is dependent upon the way he/she lives. It is too often assumed that ignorance is due solely to a want of learning. Actually, an evil life prevents the accumulation of wisdom. No bank robber wants to have a searchlight turned upon him as he rifles a safe. In a equal way, no one who is leading an immoral life wants to have the light of moral truth shining upon his foulness. That is why Our Blessed Lord said of many: "You will not come to Me because your lives are evil."

The second condition of learning depends upon the nobility and wisdom of the teachers. These teachers exist on three levels: man/woman may learn from nature alone which makes him/her a scientist; or from men, women, which makes him/her a humanist; or he/she may learn from God, Who alone can give him/her wisdom.

Almost all are willing to learn, either from the book of nature or from the lips of men/women, but many are unwilling to accept the revelation of God. This is because what God reveals very often transcends both the power of nature and the learning of men/women. For that reason, it is called a "mystery". A mystery does not mean an idea which is opposed to reason, but one which transcends reason. Mystery is like a telescope to the eye: the instrument does not destroy vision, but rather opens it to new worlds hitherto unrevealed. A proud man/woman might ask why should he/she believe that there is anything else in the world to see or know, except that which he/she touches or sees. Such an egotistic view precludes the knowledge of other worlds.

G. K. Chesterton once said that God has put a tremendous mystery in nature itself and that is the sun. In the light of that one thing which we cannot see because of its brightness, everything else is made clear. Likewise, though we cannot comprehend the nature of God completely in this life, nevertheless, in the light of the truths which He reveals, everything else is made clear, such as the mystery of pain, suffering, death, life and birth. But we can see the moon and we can see things under the moon, from which Chesterton wisely deduces: "But the moon is the mother of lunatics."

There are two kinds of wisdom: the wisdom of the flesh and the wisdom of which God gives. One is very often opposed to the other. The first would say: "This is the only life there is; therefore, we should get all we can out of it." The other sees that this life is a kind of scaffolding up through which we climb to eternal happiness. But the Divine Wisdom comes only to those who have qualifications for receiving it, and as was pointed out above, one of the first conditions is good behaviour. As Our Blessed Lord said: "If any man/woman will do My Will, he/she will know My doctrine."

Vices produce a hardened spiritual feeling which hinders understanding. Men/Women do not understand what they do not like or what would demand a change in their lives. All the training of the university will not make  certain persons mathematicians. If a man/woman does not love truth and honesty, he/she cannot be made truthful and honesty, he/she cannot be made truthful and honest by expounding the definitions of these virtues. One must begin by creating within being him/her conduct along the lines of these virtues. Then he/she can be taught the meaning of truth and honesty. One can cure a bad passion only by producing a good one; one can expel an evil affection only by the Spirit of God. Here is the answer to the question of why some people who are otherwise learned do not attain to the wisdom which is revealed by God.

Pontius Pilate was a philosopher and belonged to the school of the pragmatists. He talked with Our Lord Jesus about His Kingdom and about truth, but Pilate's corrupt selfishness and his political interests permitted him to sentence Innocence to the Cross. There was a moral blindness in close conjunction with philosophical intelligence. This higher wisdom is faith, and faith is not a blind willingness to believe that something will happen. Faith is the acceptance of a truth on the authority of God revealing it, and this is the wisdom which sometimes children possess and learned men/women lack. That is why Divine Wisdom said that only as we became like little children, could we enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Forgiveness meets us more than halfway. The kiss of welcome is extended before one word of penitence or request had been spoken. - Why Am I Tempted?  - The question is not why do we sin, because there is a distinction between temptation and sin. Temptation is merely a solicitation, an invitation, a suggestion to do wrong/evil. Sin is the voluntary doing of that wrong/evil thing. Sacred Scripture says - "Blessed is the man/woman who suffers temptation." In this context, temptation, means trial. The sixth petition of the Lord's Prayer, "Lead us not unto temptation" is a petition to escape trials which we cannot master.

When Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible states that God tempted Abraham, it merely means God tried Abraham's faith as a goldsmith tries gold in the fire; there is a world of difference between God trying His people and inciting their corruption.

Coming more precisely to the subject of temptation, here are a few basic principles: 

1. - Temptation comes from the duality or complexity of our nature. We are not simple creatures like crystals, but rather a compound of body and soul, matter and spirit. The human personality is like a driver in a headstrong steeds: one is the animal urge with us, and the other the spirit. The charioteer, or the driver, has great difficulty to get both steeds headed in the same direction.

Though modern psychology has done much to develop the nature of this tension, it must not be thought that the tension inside man/woman was not known in the past. The greatest of Greek dramatists, Sophocles, wrote of the great primeval disharmony that it was "grave with age and infected all men". Ovid, the Latin poet, wrote: "I see and approve the better things of life, but the worse things in life I follow."

Every human being in the world can bear witness to the civil war which goes on inside his being. Good people sometimes act like bad people; very bad people, in certain circumstances, will act like good people. Goethe regretted that God had made him only one man. There was enough material in him for both a saint and a villain.

2. - It must not be thought that the origin of temptation is solely to be sought in the individual human personality. If the origin were wholly within the person, it is conceivable that some would be without temptation; but there is no one in the world who is not tempted - absolutely no one. The nature of the temptation may vary with age. Confucius divided temptations into three different stages of human life: in youth man/woman is tempted to lust, in middle age to pride and power, and in old age to avarice or greed. No one tells the full story of temptation by seeking its origin in a grandfather or a grandmother, or too much love for a father or too little love for a mother, crowded tenements, low calorie diet or insufficient education.

3. - The true origin of the conflict is not to be found in the individual exclusively but in human nature. This assumes there is a difference between "nature" and "person". Nature answers to the question, "What is it?" A person answers to the question, "Who is it?" A pencil is not a person. An atom is not a person. John Jones is a person. Something has happened to disturb the original human nature so that it is now neither an angel nor a devil. Human nature is not intrinsically corrupt (as some theologians claimed 400 years ago); nor is it intrinsically divine (as philosophers began saying fifty years ago). Rather, human nature has aspirations for good which it sometimes finds impossible to realize completely by itself; at the same time, human nature has inclinations to evil which solicit it away from these ideas.

It is like a man/woman who is down a well of his/her own stupidity. He/She knows that he/she ought not to be there, but he/she is like a clock whose mainspring is broken. He needs to be fixed on the inside, but repairs must be supplied from without. He/She is a creature who can run well again, but only if Someone outside has the kindness to repair him/her. This Someone is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God and the Redeemer of human nature. He came to heal the breach caused by false freedom.

BY  VENERABLE  FULTON  J.  SHEEN    

-   WELCOME TO SACRED SCRIPTURE / WORD OF GOD / HOLY BIBLE READER'S COMMUNITY   - 

Just as God originally inspired the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible, He has used this means to preserve His Word for future generations. But behind the writing lay periods of time when these messages were circulated in spoken form. [Oral Tradition] The stories of the patriarchs were passed from generation to generation by word of mouth before they were written. [Written Tradition] The messages of the prophets were delivered orally before they were fixed in writing. Narratives of the life and ministry of Christ Jesus were repeated orally for two or three decades before they were given written form.

Wishing you, 'Happy Reading', and may God, the Father, the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ, fills your heart, mind, thoughts, and grants you: The Holy Spirit, that is, Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Piety, Fortitude, Fear of the Lord, and also His fruits of the Holy Spirit, that is, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Trustfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. Amen! God blessing be upon you!

Why do you call Me, "Lord, Lord" and not do what I say?' "Everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words and acts on them - I will show you what he/she is like. He/She is like a man/woman who when he/she built his/her house dug, deep, and laid the foundations on rock; when the river was in flood it bore down on that house but could not shake it, it was so well built. But the one who listens and does nothing is like the man/woman who built his/her house on soil, with no foundations: as soon as the river bore down on it, it collapsed; and what a ruin that house became!" - Luke 6:46-49 - 

If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ Jesus, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to it function. So the body grows until it has built itself up, in love." - Ephesians 4:15-16 - 

I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now. But when the spirit of truth comes, he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself, but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come. He/She will glorify me, since all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine." - John 16:12-15 -          

This brings us back to the Lord's words about seeing and not seeing, hearing and not understanding. For Jesus is not trying to convey to us some sort of abstract knowledge that does not concern us profoundly. The Lord Jesus Christ has to lead us to the mystery of God - to the light that our eyes cannot bear and that we therefore try to escape. In order to make it accessible to us, he shows how the divine light shines through in the things of this world and in the realities of our everyday life. Through every events, he wants to show us the real ground of all things and thus the true direction we have to take in our day-to-day lives if we want to go the right way. He shows us God: not an abstract God, but the God who acts, who intervenes in our lives, and wants to take us by the hand. He shows us through everyday things who we are and what we we must therefore do. He conveys knowledge that makes demands upon us; it not only or even primarily adds to what we know, but it changes our lives. It is a knowledge that enriches us with a gift: "God is on the way to you." But equally it is an exacting knowledge: "Have faith, and let faith be your guide." The possibility of refusal is very real, for the parable lacks the necessary proof.

There can be a thousand rational objections - not only in Jesus' generation, but through all generations and today maybe more than ever. For we have developed a concept of reality that excludes reality's  translucence to God. The only thing that counts as real is what can be experimentally proven. God cannot be constrained into experimentation. That is exactly the reproach he made to the Israelites in the desert: "There your fathers tested me [tried to constrain me into experimentation], and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work" (Psalms 95:9). God cannot be seen through the world - that is what the modern concept of reality says. And so there is even less reason to accept the demand he places on us: To believe in him as God and to live accordingly seems like a totally unreasonable requirement. In this situation, the parables really do lead to non-seeing and non-understanding, to "hardening of heart."

This means, though, that the parables are ultimately an expression of God's hiddenness in this world and of the fact that knowledge of God always lays claim to the whole person - that such knowledge is one with life itself, and that it cannot exist without "repentance." For this world, marked by sin, the gravitational pull of our lives is weighted by the chains of the "I" and the "self." These chains must be broken to free us for a new love that places us in another gravitational field where we can enter new life. In this sense, knowledge of God is possible only through the gift of God's love becoming visible but this gift too has to be accepted. In this sense, the parables manifest the essence of Jesus' message and the mystery of the Cross is inscribed right at the heart of the parables.

"Three Major Parables From The Gospel Of Luke" - To attempt an exposition of even a significant portion of Jesus' parables would far exceed the scope of this book. I would therefore like to limit myself to the three major parable narratives in Luke's Gospel, whose beauty and depth spontaneously touch believer and non-believer alike again and again: the story of the Good Samaritan, the parable of the Prodigal Son, and the tale of the rich man and Lazarus. 

- (1) The Good Samaritan ( Luke 10:25-37 ) - We can safely ignore the individual details of the allegory which change from Church Father to Church Father. But the great vision that sees man lying alienated and helpless by the roadside of history and God himself becoming man's neighbor in Jesus Christ is one that we can happily retain, as a deeper dimension of the parable that is of concern to us. For the mighty imperative expressed in the parable is not thereby weakened but only now emerges in its full grandeur. The great theme of love, which is the real thrust of the text, is only now given its full breadth. For now we realize that we are all "alienated" in need of redemption. Now we realize that we are all in need of the gift of God's redeeming love that we are all in need of the gift of God's redeeming love ourselves, so that we too can become "lovers" in our turn. Now we realize that we always need God, who makes himself our neighbor so that we can become neighbors.

The two characters in this story are relevant to every single human being. Everyone is "alienated," especially from love (which, after all, is the essence of the "supernatural splendor" of which we have been despoiled); everyone must first be healed and filled with God's gifts. But the everyone is also called to become a Samaritan - to follow Christ and become like him. When we do that, we live rightly. We love rightly when we become like him, who loved all of us first (cf. 1 John 4:19).    

- (2) The Parable of the Two Brothers (the Prodigal Son and the Son Who Remained at Home) and the Good Father ( Luke 15:11-32 ) - While we may regard this application of the parable of the two brothers to Israel and the Gentiles as one dimension of the text, there are other dimensions as well. After all, what Jesus says about the older brother is aimed not simply at Israel (the sinners who came to him were Jews, too), but at the specific temptation of the righteous, of those who are "en regle," at rights with God, as Grelot puts it (page 229). In this connection, Grelot places emphasis on the sentence "I never disobeyed one of your commandments." For them, more than anything else God is Law; they see themselves in a juridical relationship with God and in that relationship they are at rights with him. But God is greater: They need to convert from the Law-God to the greater God, the God of love. This will not mean giving up their disobedience, but rather that this obedience will flow from deeper wellsprings and will therefore be bigger, more open and purer, but above all more humble.

Let us add a further aspect that has already been touched upon: Their bitterness toward God's goodness reveals an inward bitterness regarding their own obedience, a bitterness that indicates the limitation of this obedience. In their heart of hearts, they would have gladly journeyed out into that great "freedom" as well. There is an unspoken envy of what others have been able to get away with. They have not gone through the pilgrimage that purified the younger brother and made him realize what it means to be free and what it means to be a son. They actually carry their freedom as if it were slavery and they have not matured to real sonship. They, too, are still in need of a path; they can find it if they simply admit that God is right and accept his feast as their own. In this parable, then, the Father through Christ Jesus is addressing us, the ones who never left home, encouraging us too to convert truly and to find joy in our faith. 

-  (3) The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus ( Luke 16:19-31 ) - .... Some of the Church Fathers also classed this parable as an example of the two-brother pattern and applied it to the relationship between Israel (the rich man) and the Church (the poor man, Lazarus), but in so doing they mistook the very different typology that is involved here. This is evident already in the very different ending. Whereas the two-brother texts remain open, ending as a question and an invitation....... The suffering just man who sees all this is in danger of doubting his faith. Does God really not see? Does he not hear? Does he not care about men's fate? ....... The turning point comes when the suffering just man in the Sanctuary looks toward God and, as he does so, his perspective becomes broader.

In the description of the next life that now follows in the parable, Jesus uses ideas that were current in the Judaism of his time. Hence we must not force our interpretation of this part of the text. Jesus adopts existing images, without formally incorporating them into his teaching about the next life. Nevertheless, Jesus does unequivocally affirm the substance of the images. In this sense, it is important to note that Jesus invokes here the idea of the intermediate state between death and the resurrection which by then had become part of the universal patrimony of Jewish faith. The rich man is in Hades, conceived here as a temporary place, and not in "Gehenna" (hell) which is the name of the final state (Jeremias, p. 185). Jesus says nothing about a "resurrection in death" here. But as we saw earlier, this is not the principal message that the Lord Jesus wants to convey in this parable.............

We do not need to analyze here the differences between these two versions. One thing is clear: God's sign for men is the Son of Man; it is Jesus himself. And at the deepest level, he is this sign in his Pascal Mystery, in the mystery of his death and Resurrection. He himself is "the sign of Jonah." He, crucified and risen, is the true Lazarus. The parable is inviting us to believe and follow him, God's great sign. But it is more than a parable. It speaks of reality, of the most decisive reality in all history.  -  PAGE  TWO  -         

BY  HIS  HOLINESS  POPE  BENEDICT  XVI   -   JESUS of NAZARETH   -

-   WELCOME TO SACRED SCRIPTURE / WORD OF GOD / HOLY BIBLE READER'S COMMUNITY   - 

Just as God originally inspired the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible, He has used this means to preserve His Word for future generations. But behind the writing lay periods of time when these messages were circulated in spoken form. [Oral Tradition] The stories of the patriarchs were passed from generation to generation by word of mouth before they were written. [Written Tradition] The messages of the prophets were delivered orally before they were fixed in writing. Narratives of the life and ministry of Christ Jesus were repeated orally for two or three decades before they were given written form.

Wishing you, 'Happy Reading', and may God, the Father, the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ, fills your heart, mind, thoughts, and grants you: The Holy Spirit, that is, Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Piety, Fortitude, Fear of the Lord, and also His fruits of the Holy Spirit, that is, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Trustfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. Amen! God blessing be upon you!

Why do you call Me, "Lord, Lord" and not do what I say?' "Everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words and acts on them - I will show you what he/she is like. He/She is like a man/woman who when he/she built his/her house dug, deep, and laid the foundations on rock; when the river was in flood it bore down on that house but could not shake it, it was so well built. But the one who listens and does nothing is like the man/woman who built his/her house on soil, with no foundations: as soon as the river bore down on it, it collapsed; and what a ruin that house became!" - Luke 6:46-49 - 

If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ Jesus, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to it function. So the body grows until it has built itself up, in love." - Ephesians 4:15-16 - 

I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now. But when the spirit of truth comes, he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself, but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come. He/She will glorify me, since all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine." - John 16:12-15 -