Saturday, April 16, 2011

White Rodgers Rv Cable

Love your neighbor as yourself


fact have been observed. The Jordan River in its course, forms two seas: the Sea of \u200b\u200bGalilee and the Dead Sea, but while the sea of \u200b\u200bGalilee is a sea teeming with life, including fishing waters over the earth, the Dead Sea is precisely an ocean "dead", no trace of life in him or her around, just salt. And yet it is the same water of the Jordan. The explanation, at least in part, is this: the Sea of \u200b\u200bGalilee receives water from the Jordan, but not retained for himself, make them flow again so that they can irrigate the entire Jordan Valley.

The Dead Sea receives water and retains for itself, no drains, it does not leave a drop of water. It is a symbol. For God's sake, we must give to the brothers, and the more you give, the more we receive. On this we reflect on this meditation.

Having reflected on the first two meditations on the love of God as a gift, it's time to meditate also on the duty to love, and in particular the duty to love our neighbor. The link between the two loves programmatically expressed by the word of God: "If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. "(1 Jn 4.11).

"love thy neighbor as thyself" was an old commandment written in the law of Moses (Lev 19:18) and Jesus himself is quoted as such (Lk 10, 27). How then Jesus calls "his" command and the command "new"? The answer is that he changed the subject, the subject and the subject of charity.

has changed to the whole object, ie, the neighbor to love. This is not just the fellow or at most the guest who lives with the people, but every man, even overseas (the Samaritan!), even the enemy. It is true that the second part of the phrase "Love your neighbor and hate your enemy" is not literally in the Old Testament, but its general outlines, expressed in the law of retaliation, "eye for eye, tooth for tooth "(Leviticus 24.20), especially when compared to what Jesus demanded of his disciples:" But I say: Love your enemies, pray for their persecutors, so you will be sons of the Father in heaven, because he makes his sun rise on the evil and good and makes the rain on the just and unjust. If you love only those who love you, what reward you deserve? Do not do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing than others? Is not the pagans do the same thing? "(Mt 5, 44-47).

has also changed the subject of charity, that is, the meaning of the word neighbor. This is not the other is I, not the one who is close, but it comes close. In the parable of the Good Samaritan Jesus demonstrates that we should not wait passively for others come my way, with many flares, sirens deployed. The others are you, ie that you can be. The neighbor starting there, but others will do just that close to someone.

has changed over the entire model or the measure of love of neighbor. Even Jesus, the model was the love of oneself, "as thyself." It is said that God could not secure the love of neighbor to a "pin" safer than this, to have received the same goal even his had said, "You shall love your neighbor as your God!" Because of love God - that is, what is to love God - the man can still cheating, but about loving yourself no. The man knows what it means, in every circumstance, love yourself, it is a mirror that has always before him, there is no escape.

And yet leave a loophole, and that is why Jesus was replaced by another model and another measure: "This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved you" (Jn 15:12) . The man can love yourself the wrong way, that is, wishing evil, no good, love the vice, not virtue. If such a man loves others as himself, the poor girl who is loved as well! We know where we instead take the love of Jesus to the truth, goodness, the Father. Who follow him "does not walk in darkness." He loved us by giving his life for us, when we were sinners, that is, enemies (Rom 5, 6 ff.)

thus is understood what is meant by the Gospel of John with his apparently contradictory statement: "Beloved, do not give you a new commandment, but an old commandment which you learned from the beginning: The old commandment is the word heard. However, the commandment that I give it back "(1 Jn 2, 7-8). The commandment of love of neighbor is "old" in the letter, but "new" by the very novelty of the Gospel. New - Pope explains in a chapter of his new book on Jesus - because it is not only "law" but also, and even before, "grace." It is based on communion with Christ, made possible by the gift of the Spirit.

With Jesus passed the law of the counterweight, or between two actors: "What makes you the other, házselo you to it," the law of the transfer, or three actors: "What God has done you, do it the other ", or, starting from the opposite direction:" What you've done to the other, is what God made you. " Countless are the words of Jesus and the apostles who repeat this concept: "As God has forgiven, forgive one another": "If you do not forgive heart to your enemies, neither will your Father forgive. " Cut the following excuse: "But he loves me, offends me ...". This will compete with him, not you. To you it has to import only what you do to the other and how you do versus what the other does to you.

There remains the main question: why this unique reversal of God's love to others? Would not it be logical to expect: "As I have loved you, and my love Me?" Instead of "As I have loved, love and each other"? Here's the difference between the pure love of eros and eros and agape love together. Erotic love is purely closed loop: "Love me, Alfredo, love me like I love you" and sings Violetta in Traviata Verdi: I love you, you love me. The agape love is open loop: it comes from God and returns to him, but through others. Jesus himself inaugurated this new kind of love: "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you" (Jn 15, 9).

Santa Catalina de Siena gave the reason for this, the simple and compelling explanation. She has God say: "I ask you to love me the same love that I love you. This is not what I can do to me, because I have loved without being loved. All the love you have for me is a love of debt, not of grace, because you are forced to do so, while I love you with a love of grace, not debt. Therefore, you can not give me the love that I require. This is why I put next to your neighbor, for you to do this so that you can not get used to me, that is, love without considerations of merit and without useless waited. And I think that I do to me what you do to him "


* P. Raniero Cantalamessa, Preacher to the Papal Household

Preaching Lent 2011 Third

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