JUNE122025

We started the liturgical season of “ordinary time” this week. During Ordinary Time a particular book of the Bible and a particular gospel are read chapter by chapter as a “continuous reading.”  We started the second epistle to the Corinthians and the gospel of Matthew on Monday. The gospel began with the sermon on the mount (Matthew 5-7) and today we reached that part of the sermon called the six antitheses. Jesus contrasts the ordinary piety that was familiar to a pious Jew with the new way of life demanded of his followers. “You have heard that it was said to your ancestors … But I say to you...” The life of a Christian is more than a matter of belief, of a confession of faith (orthodoxy). It also includes a certain way of life, a change of behavior (orthopraxis). The life of a Christian is not transactional (what’s in it for me) but characterized by compassion, forgiveness, mercy, generosity. We can never feel content that we bear the name of Christian. We make sure that how we live proves that we are not in name only but also in fact acting as Christ has taught us how the people of God are called to act.