Daily Catholic Lectio
Fri, 14 June 2024
Tenth week in Ordinary Time – Friday
1 Kings 19:9, 11-16. Matthew 5:27-32
Love and commitment
Jesus instructs his disciples, “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven.” He applies this instruction to different commandments and makes them understand their implications. The present gospel reading dwells on the sixth (‘do not commit adultery’) and ninth (‘do not covet your neighbour’s wife’) commandments of the decalogue.
‘But I say to you, “Everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.’”
Jesus takes us to the creation narrative. According to the second narrative, when the Lord God led the woman to the man, the man exclaimed, “Behold, the bone of my bone and the flesh of my flesh.” The man saw the woman as someone who complements, extends, and embellishes him.
But, in adultery, the woman who is the bone and flesh of someone is led to become another man’s bone and flesh. In the first instance, it begins with our eyes. In the event of David-Bathsheba (cf. 2 Sam 11), David’s seeing leads him to sin. David takes the bone and flesh of Uriah and makes it his.
In the narrative of Amnon-Tamar, an incest relationship (cf. 2 Sam 13), Amnon hates Tamar once the act is done. Tamar, who was attractive to his eyes, becomes an object of hatred and abhorrence.
There are three problems in any relationship that is outside of or before marriage:
(a) The relationship is based on the bodily senses. Pleasure alone is the scope.
(b) The other is easily replaced.
(c) One does not feel responsible for the other.
Jesus makes his contemporaries understand that the commandment ‘do not commit adultery’ does not aim at preventing the action of adultery; rather, it invites a man towards deeper love and closer commitment.
Where there is love, commitment, and responsibility, adultery and divorce disappear.
#
God, who says to Elijah, ‘Stand here!’, later asks him, ‘Why are you here?’ God sends him on a mission (first reading). God defines our existence and movement. (Jubilee 2025 AD, bite 124).
Fr. Yesu Karunanidhi
Archdiocese of Madurai
Missionary of Mercy
Yesu Karunanidhi 
Leave a comment