"Please forgive me for the brevity of my night prayer, but I am so tired. Oh, yes, please don't call me home tonight because I am still repenting and atoning for my sins". One Our Father, halfway, I fell asleep.
The next morning I received an email marked urgent. I had forgotten to update my credit card for my internet service and now I was past due payment. Having called the number on the email, I was told by two people that though I had both the account number and router phone number that without my PIN number , they could not access my account. Therefore they could not accept payment.
At the store the manager accessed my account with my account number and router numbers. Without my ID or PIN number they took my payment and updated my credit card information.
Different rules and different ways to access the same account. Rules imposed by others will be interpreted in many different ways.
In today's Gospel. Jesus said to the disciples, "You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. Yes," you have heard", not "it is written".
God speaks to us through the Bible. It is clearly written in the Old Testament about loving your enemy, love and do good, feed and help when he stumbles.
Exo 23:4,5 "When you come upon your enemy's ox or ass going astray, see to it that it is returned to him. When you notice the ass of one who hates you lying prostrate under its burden, by no means desert him; help him rather, to raise it up."
Pro 25:21 "If your enemy be hungry, give him food to eat, if he be thirsty, give him to drink."
Pro 24:17 "Rejoice not when your enemy falls, and when he stumbles, let not your heart exult."
Pro 29:10 "Blood thirsty men hate the honest man, but the upright show concern for his life. "( The New American Bible)
If you attended FACE ZBS last week we learned that there were 613 Mitzvahs or Commandments. They were added on to the original Ten. The scribes and Pharisees added their interpretation, rewrote or added the oral traditions of their fathers to the many commandments. They were teaching their version of the Old Testament, making it extremely hard to follow. Their own traditions were added on to God's law The Scribes and Pharisees were the teachers of their time. ( FACE ZBS February 12, 2023)
This Gospel is a good lesson on how much I have to work on myself. It is there to remind me that though I lost my temper and let my frustration be understood over the phone, I need to live as Jesus tells me. We are to be perfect just as our heavenly Father is perfect.
