Bible texts with
commentary
These Bible
meditations are meant as a way of seeking God in silence and prayer in the
midst of our daily life. During the course of a day, take a moment to read the
Bible passage with the short commentary and to reflect on the questions which
follow. Afterwards, a small group of 3 to 10 people can meet to share what they
have discovered and perhaps for a time of prayer.
August 2014
Romans 12:3-13: One Body in Christ
For by the grace given
me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you
ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the
faith God has distributed to each of you. For just as each of us has one body
with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in
Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the
others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If
your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is
serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then
give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do
it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully. Love must be sincere.
Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love.
Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your
spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction,
faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice
hospitality. (Romans 12:3-13)
The key to the passage
is verse 5: “In Christ we, though many, form one body.” The image of the human
body to describe a group of people is not an uncommon one in the literature of
the time, but the New Testament takes it to new depths. During his life on
earth, the disciples of Jesus, although they were a very diverse group, must
already have felt an intense unity stemming from their attachment to him. But
after the Resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit, this unity took on a
whole new dimension: the believers found that they were “in” Christ, and that
together they somehow now constituted a single organism.
Believers in Christ
are actually parts of each other. This reality is often largely hidden from us.
If we think of the Church as an institution with a list of members, or else as
a provider of some sort of service or product of which we are consumers, we
will be quite unable to see it. For it depends on the presence of the Holy
Spirit in us, deep within ourselves. It is a mysterious communion that unites
people by what is deepest in each one.
Many of us feel lonely
or somehow dislocated from life: we feel we do not have a place where we really
belong. And the result is that we often seek to assert ourselves over and
against others, trying to dominate them in some way. Or else we undervalue
ourselves and consider what we do to be worth nothing. Entering the reality of
forming one body in Christ can be a remedy for this kind of alienation. We no
longer need to seek security by “thinking of ourselves more highly (or less
highly) than we ought” (v. 3), but we are free to have a “sober judgment”,
because in an organism every part has its unique value and has an irreplaceable
role to play. If one part arrogates to itself the roles of others, the whole
body is impoverished. If parts hold back from playing their role, the entire
organism is handicapped. But when everyone exercises their gifts fully, all are
enriched.
To each person, God
has apportioned a unique “grace”, a role to play in the life of the whole body,
by understanding, by trusting, by persevering, and by actions in harmony with
other members of the Church. There is a happiness in fulfilling that role. And
the role I have to fulfil is my own, not somebody else’s.
The passage gives some
examples: there are special gifts of being able to touch and challenge people’s
hearts (such as “prophecy”); there are ordained ministries and definite posts
in the Church (including “teaching” and “service”); there are human gifts to be
exercised mainly in informal ways (“encouragement”) and so on. In Christ’s
Church, everyone is called to be herself or himself. God loves this diversity,
wanting no two people to be exactly the same, but for all to use their
particular gifts – including their as yet undiscovered gifts – for the
wellbeing of the whole.
Have I experienced anything of “being one body in Christ”?
How could I go deeper into this experience? Living out this reality is usually possible only in a
community that is part of a local church. Where is this community for me, or
where could it be? What gifts do I have that I could offer to Christ as a
part of his body, the Church? Am I inclined to overvalue them or to undervalue
them? What gifts do I see in other members of the Church? What
can I do to affirm them and to benefit from them?
MEDITATION BY BROTHER ALOIS
God’s Love, Source of
Human Solidarity
Thursday 24 July 2014
Last Thursday I told the young people here in the
church: there are so many of us on the hill and among us all there
is a beautiful and great diversity. It is a constant surprise to see the joy
and solidarity that unite those who are here.
Our life all together
allows us better to understand the communion of the Church. The Church is
itself when, through the life of its members, it radiates God’s joy and peace.
But at the same time
we are distressed by what we learn of violence and wars in the world. The
presence here of young people from regions marked by conflict makes us still
more sensitive to the suffering. But their presence also encourages us
tremendously. We see that everywhere there are women and men of peace.
We are touched to
welcome Ukrainians and Russians this week. And a group of Palestinians from the
Bethlehem area. One of these Palestinians is Muslim; the others are Christians.
And we also think of Rabbi Levi and our Jewish friends in Israel.
This week two thousand
French students were supposed to travel to the Holy Land and their project had
to be canceled. We share their disappointment and that of those who were
overjoyed to welcome them. Some of these students have come to Taizé these days
to replace this pilgrimage which was canceled.
What can we do in the
face of violence? When conflicts have erupted it is often too late. The spiral
of hatred and revenge is extremely difficult to interrupt. The wounds are too
deep for hearts to find peace.
How can we open our
eyes better in advance to the ways conflicts are prepared? I think of
immigration, for example. Some want to protect themselves by building
insulating walls. But they forget the debt that many Northern countries have to
Southern countries, and they seem unaware that the North will need immigrants
in the years to come.
To prevent future
conflicts, for example those that such situations prepare, it is essential to
change the regulations. But this is not enough. To prevent conflicts, hearts
need to change.
Is not the priority
today to introduce in human societies more brotherhood, more attentiveness to
others? This implies in particular developing within ourselves a greater
sensitivity to those who remain wounded by our roadsides.
I would like this not
only to remain a moral appeal, but for us to find in our faith a motivation for
this call for solidarity. That will be the center of our thinking next year.
Confidence in the
infinite love that God has for each person, for each one of us, is the source
of human solidarity. It is starting from this source of love that the Gospel
invites Christians, together with those seeking peace, to a life of solidarity.
For us brothers, one of our greatest desires is that all of you who pass
through this place may discover this source of life.
For this source to
flow into our hearts, every person, and we brothers too, every person must
clear the ground in themselves over and over again. This means not looking
back, not clinging to bitterness or humiliation, but entrusting them to Christ,
who has conquered hatred and violence.
It is the Holy Spirit,
present in us, who pours into our hearts the source of love and peace. In the
face of all that discourages us—violence in the world, our own weakness and
imperfections, and even our mistakes—in the face of all that we need to have
the courage just to say yes to his presence.
This yes can be
hesitant and hardly noticeable, but it creates an opening in us. And peace
received in the secret of our hearts can bring us far; it can transform the
earth.
Let us remember Mary’s
yes. By her simple yes, that girl of Nazareth allowed Christ to be born among
us. Surely none of her neighbors could suspect the extraordinary thing that was
taking place.
Let us say the same
yes in order to receive the love and peace of Christ. By the presence of the
Holy Spirit in us, he prepares us to forgive and to follow him to the point of
loving even those who hurt us.
Tonight we are praying
especially for peace in the Middle East. Sometimes we wonder if prayer can
change the course of history and it’s true that we do not know what effect it
has. It’s better that way; otherwise our prayer might become a form of bargaining
with God.
We pray in the hope
that our poor prayer may create openings and God’s love may more easily blow
upon those we entrust to him. In this spirit, this summer we have been
gathering every Sunday at 6:30pm for half an hour of silence in this church to
pray for peace.
And now I invite the
Palestinians to come up here close to me. They will recite the Our Father in
Arabic; we will listen while praying inwardly with them. Then the prayer will
continue by singing Da pacem ... in diebus
“Forgive
your neighbour the wrong done to you, and then your sins will be pardoned when
you pray” (Sir 28:2).
This Word of Life is taken from one of the
books of the Hebrew Testament written between 180 and 170 B.C. by Ben Sira
(Sirach in Greek), a sage, scribe and teacher in Jerusalem.
He taught a subject that was dear to the whole
tradition of biblical wisdom: God is merciful toward sinners and we should
imitate his way of acting. The Lord forgives all our faults because “The Lord
is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love” (Ps
103:8). He overlooks our sins (see Wis 11:23), he forgets them, casting them
behind his back (see Is 38:17).
In fact, Ben Sira goes on to say that, aware
of how small and weak we are, he “increases his forgiveness.” God forgives
because, like a good father or mother, he loves his children, and so he always
and untiringly excuses them, covers their mistakes, instills confidence and
encourages them.
Because God is mother and
father, he is not satisfied with just loving and forgiving his sons
and daughters. He ardently desires that they treat one another as brothers and
sisters, that they get along with one another, that they love one another. This
is God’s great plan for humanity: universal brotherhood. Such a brotherhood is
stronger than the inevitable divisions, tensions, and hard feelings that so
easily creep into relationships due to misunderstandings and mistakes.
Families often break up
because people don’t know how to forgive. Past hatreds are handed
down only to perpetuate divisions between relatives, social groups, peoples.
Some people even teach others not to forget the wrongs suffered, to cultivate
sentiments of revenge … Such deep resentment can only poison the soul and
corrupt the heart.
Someone might think that forgiveness is a sign
of weakness. No, it’s an expression of great courage; it’s authentic love, the
most genuine, because it’s the most selfless.
“If you love those who love you, what reward
do you have?” says Jesus (Mt. 5:46). Everyone knows how to do that. Jesus asks
for more: “Love your enemies” (Mt 5:44).
We are asked to learn from him and to have the
love of a father, of a mother, a merciful love toward all those who come our
way, especially those who do something wrong.
Moreover, for those who are called to live a
spirituality of communion, that is, the Christian spirituality, the New
Testament asks for something more: “Bear with one another … forgive” (Col
3:13). We could almost say that mutual love requires that we make a pact with
one another: to be ready to forgive one another always. This is the only way we
can contribute to universal brotherhood.
“Forgive your neighbor the
wrong done to you, and then your sins will be pardoned when you pray.”
These words not only invite us to forgive, but
they remind us that forgiving others is the necessary condition for receiving
forgiveness. God listens to us and forgives us in the measure in which we
forgive others. Jesus himself warns us: “The measure you give will be the
measure you get” (Mt 7:2). “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive
mercy” (Mt 5:7). Actually, a heart hardened by hatred is not even capable of
recognizing and accepting the merciful love of God.
How can we live these
words of life? First of all, by immediately forgiving anyone with whom we
have not yet been reconciled. But this is not enough. We need to search the
innermost recesses of our heart and eliminate even a feeling of indifference, a
lack of kindness, an attitude of superiority, of neglect toward anyone we meet.
Furthermore, we need to
take some precautionary measures. So every morning I
look at the people around me, at home, at school, at work, in the store, ready
to overlook anything that I don’t like about their way of doing things, not
judging them, but trusting them, always hoping, always believing. I approach
every person with this total amnesty in my heart, with this universal pardon. I
do not remember their faults at all, I cover everything with love.
And throughout the day I try to make up for
having been unkind, for a fit of impatience, by apologizing or by some gesture
of friendship. I replace an instinctive rejection toward someone with an
attitude of total openness, of boundless mercy, of complete forgiveness, of sharing,
of being attentive to his or her needs.
Then when I pray to the Father, especially
when I ask him to forgive my mistakes, I am confident that my prayer will be
granted. I’ll be able to say with total trust: [L1] Forgive us our trespasses, as
we forgive those who trespass against us (see Mt
6:12).
Chiara Lubich
Each month a Scripture passage is offered as a
guide and inspiration for daily living. This commentary, translated into 96
different languages and dialects, reaches several million people worldwide
through print, radio, television and the Internet. Ever since the Focolare’s
beginnings, founder Chiara Lubich (1920–2008) wrote her commentaries each
month. This one was originally published in September 2002.
