Christianity & Religious Behavior

This is a rephrasing of my first reflection which I thought was erased after publishing and losing it. Am thankful that it was saved in the previous post. Anyway, for comparative purposes let me have it published here so we can document this computer glitch today.

June 18, 2008
2 Kgs 2, 1.6-14 / Mt 6, 1-6.16-18

The Gospel speaks of three behaviors in religion: almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. Jesus practiced these Himself. Didn't we hear Him tell Judas, when Mary (Lazarus' and Martha's sister) at Bethany a few days before He was crucified "The poor you will always have but me you will not" (Jn 12, 8). The Gospel of Mark even adds "...and you can be kind to them whenever you wish" (14,7). We have read that Jesus went out to the mountain to pray, and even shared them (and us too) His own prayer - the Our Father. He fasted too, didn't he? 40 days after His baptism at Jordan!

When the words in today's Gospel Matthew attributes to Jesus hint at is the pride and false belief these three religious behaviors can give us. The legalese in these pious behaviors can make us so self-righteous before God and deride others before the divine Presence. Didn't Jesus tell us to beware of the Pharisaical attitude: "I thank you Lord for I am... not like this tax collector..." It can make us think that our prayer can make God work for us. Our fasting can make God have mercy on us.

What Jesus came to tell us what the fact that God Has His will, and a plan which He Himself came to fulfill, respecting Him in its disposition - didn't He tell the apostles that "sitting at my right is not for me to give for it is reserved by my heavenly Father...," that the restoration of Israel is not up for me to decide but it is the Father's (see Acts, in Luke's account of the Ascencion). No amount of our piety can ever manipulate God to act. Our bargaining - I do this if you do that - therefore is something we may really need to rethink and reconsider.

What is then left for us to do is this: when we pray, we are called to be sensitive and docile to His will, making ourselves as ready and willing as Christ to live out that will for us. Our fasting is to make us master ourselves so that we live not as we like but as God likes. And our fasting is to make us remember that whatever we have is not for ourselves alone but for those whom He gives us to share "whenever we wish."

Indeed, Christ came to bring us the freedom of the Kingdom, for in Him we have all become beneficiaries of His generous mercy and love.

"May the darkness of sin and the night of unbelief vanish before the light of the Word and the Spirit of grace, and may the Heart of Jesus live in the hearts of all. Amen."
- St. Arnold Janssen