OXYGEN

08 Sep – Monday in the Twenty-Third Week in Ordinary Time

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1 Corinthians 5:1-8

It is widely reported that there is sexual immorality among you, immorality of a kind that is not found even among gentiles: that one of you is living with his stepmother. And you so filled with your own self-importance! It would have been better if you had been grieving bitterly, so that the man who has done this thing were turned out of the community. 

For my part, however distant I am physically, I am present in spirit and have already condemned the man who behaved in this way, just as though I were present in person. When you have gathered together in the name of our Lord Jesus, with the presence of my spirit, and in the power of our Lord Jesus, hand such a man over to Satan, to be destroyed as far as natural life is concerned, so that on the Day of the Lord his spirit may be saved. 

Your self-satisfaction is ill founded. Do you not realise that only a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Throw out the old yeast so that you can be the fresh dough, unleavened as you are. For our Passover has been sacrificed, that is, Christ;  Let us keep the feast, then, with none of the old yeast and no leavening of evil and wickedness, but only the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. 

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Luke 6:6-11

Now on another Sabbath he went into the synagogue and began to teach, and a man was present, and his right hand was withered.  The scribes and the Pharisees were watching him to see if he would cure somebody on the Sabbath, hoping to find something to charge him with. 

But he knew their thoughts; and he said to the man with the withered hand, ‘Get up and stand out in the middle!’ And he came forward and stood there.  Then Jesus said to them, ‘I put it to you: is it permitted on the Sabbath to do good, or to do evil; to save life, or to destroy it?’  Then he looked round at them all and said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He did so, and his hand was restored.  But they were furious and began to discuss the best way of dealing with Jesus.

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How can you be so proud of yourselves?

A friend once told this to me: “In our parish, we have a male lector who is living with another man, his partner.” Another friend remarked to me that it is well-known that an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion in his parish is having an affair with another woman. What would St. Paul say to that?

Looking at today’s first reading, we see St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians fly in the face of what we are currently taught – to welcome sinners into the church. The Church teaches us that we must love the sinner and hate the sin, but how do we reconcile what St. Paul writes to the Corinthians with what we have? Is there a discrepancy in what we are taught?

My friends, the discrepancy does not lie there, but instead, it lies between what we are taught and what we do. Today’s readings are quite clear on this. It tells us that apathy, or turning a blind eye to sin, is not the same as love. Rather, it is the opposite of love. We have no doubt that such sinful acts can cause a person to lose his soul, and in yesterday’s readings, we are told that if we do not correct our brothers and sisters, we are also held responsible.

Love, rather, consists in taking action when we see our brothers and sisters living lives that are sinful. We are responsible for their spiritual health, and we need to make the effort to correct them, rather than turn a blind eye. My friends, let us not be like Cain, who when asked by God about his brother Abel, replied, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

(Today’s sharing by Daniel Tay)

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Prayer: Dear Lord, help us to see each person as our brother and sister, to heal each person’s spiritual wounds with love. Amen.

Thanksgiving: We give thanks to the Lord for those who have loved us so much that they had the courage to correct us when we are wrong, in spite of the fear of being rejected.

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Upcoming readings:

Tue, 09 Sep – 1 Cor 6:1-11, Luke 6:12-19; St Peter Claver, religious, priest, missionary
Wed, 10 Sep – 1 Cor 7:25-31, Luke 6:20-26
Thu, 11 Sep – 1 Cor 8:1-7. 11-13, Luke 6:27-38
Friday, 12 Sep – 1 Cor 9:16-19. 22b-27, Luke 6:39-42; Holy Name of Mary
Saturday, 13 Sep – 1 Cor 10:14-22, Luke 6:43-49; St John Chrysostom, Bishop, doctor of the Church

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