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| Before You Bring Your Gift to the Altar |
| (Matthew 5:17-37) |
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| This
gospel contains a rubric for the Eucharist. Rubrics are directions in
the official book that we use for Mass. They are printed in red ink.
Most rubrics come from liturgists, experts who tell us how Mass is to be
celebrated. But this rubric comes from Jesus Himself. Here's what He
says: |
| "If
you bring your gift to the altar and there recall that your brother has
anything against you, leave your gift at the altar. Go first to be
reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift." |
| Jesus
is simply saying that worship must change us. Otherwise, it is an empty
show. When we come to Mass, the first thing we do is to confess our
sins against God and each other. It would be strange if after doing
this, we continued to have ill thoughts against each other. We turn to
each other at the Sign of Peace, and wish each other the peace of
Christ. But does that peace last? Does it last until the parking lot or
the dinner table?
|
| We
receive communion, and the Lord who warns us not to offer our gifts if
we still bear grievances, could also warn us not to receive the gift,
the gift of His Body unless we are willing to be in communion with each
other. |
| A
man once told me how he had wronged his brother, and he desperately
wanted to make amends, to patch things up. But the wronged brother
would have none of it. He refused to attempt at coming together. The
man said of his brother, "He became a prisoner of what I had done to
him." |
| I
am sure that some of us can testify to that statement from our own
experience. We all know people, or perhaps, ourselves, who refuse to go
to a party because they might meet so-and-so with whom they have a
grievance, or who refuse to share in a family reunion, or even go to a
funeral, because of some wound inflicted, perhaps long ago, by a family
member. In some cases, resentment is so great that we cannot even eat
or sleep. Angry thoughts follow us to bed, and they invade our dreams.
And those words become true. We become prisoners of what someone did to
us.
|
| We
tend to forget that we are followers of Jesus who taught us to pray,
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against
us."
|
| We
have been reflecting on just a single sentence in today's gospel,
trying to turn it into a word of life, a life worth living... the Christ
life. But sometimes this brings on discouragement. We can fall into
the trap of thinking we are not good enough to come to the altar. We
think that we will never be patient, free of anger, resentment, dark
thoughts. Our confession of these failings runs on from childhood to old
age.
|
| We
must be patient with ourselves, with our trying. And we must be honest
with ourselves knowing that we need the grace of God to do anything
good. Without it, we might as well try to raise flowers or a field of
wheat without the sun. No one ever said that a single sermon, a single
line in the gospel, or even a blunt directive from Jesus, is going to
change us, to make us saints overnight. But we have to have the desire
to change, the willingness to let God's grace work in our lives. We have
to acknowledge the reality of our sinfulness, while also acknowledging
the reality of God's love for us, a love that keeps reaching out to us
in spite of our faults and our sins. It is a love that keeps urging us
on to try to do better.
|
| "How many times shall I forgive, Lord... seven times?"
|
| "No seventy times seven," was the Lord's reply.
|
| Let
us be sure that we are not held prisoner by what someone else has done
to us. Let us recall the words of our first reading, Sirach 15:15-20. If
you wish, you can keep the Commandments, to behave faithfully is within
your power. He has set fire and water before you. Put your hand to
whichever you prefer. Set before you are life and death. Choose life.
The life of Christ.
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|
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| Yours in Christ, |
 |
| Fr. Robert Warren, S.A. |
| Spiritual Director |
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