What is this Spiritual or Religious slumber? See, in our spiritual life as the days go by we tend to fall into a state where we think religion or spirituality is nothing but
· saying our daily prayers regularly and devoutly
· And avoiding all sinful things like gossiping, lying, adultery, fornication, etc.
And we think we are doing pretty well in religion and spirituality. Nothing to confess and we have enough religion and spirituality. This was what the Jews, especially the Pharisees and scribes of Jesus’ time were thinking. For them practicing the rituals and prayers, and avoiding all those things that contaminate them was Religion.
Jesus wanted to wake them and us up from this slumber and say that religion is much more than saying prayers, doing rituals and avoiding sins. It is obeying the law of love which is within our heart. So he tells them this story. The story of a Good Samaritan.
The irony in the story is that a Samaritan who was considered as non-religious, because the Samaritans mixed themselves up with pagan and so they are religiously impure. A man belonging to this group is presented as the hero. Because even though he is ritually impure, he had a heart that goes out to the one who is suffering.
And the Priests and Levite, who were considered religious, as they followed all the rituals, were made as villains because they had no place for the one who is suffering because they are full of themselves in their heart.
They who prided themselves as more religious were made to be found lacking the essential thing in their spirituality. They by avoiding doing good to the neighbour in need were found to be committing the sin of omission. What is this sin of omission? Sin of omission is ‘avoiding doing-good.’ In other words it is not doing what you are supposed to do.
It is easy to escape from the sin of commission because it is not easy to commit sin. But omitting the things and responsibilities is something which is common, but not recognised as sin. This is what Jesus wants us to be aware of.
But the problem we often relate religion with religiosity, that is rituals and prayers. But religion is in actuality is about relationships; with God and with the neighbour. A person who has no place for neighbour in his religion has not understood it properly.And on the day of Judgement, ‘Whatever you have done to the least of your brethren is what is counted.’ And if you cannot be a good neighbour to your fellow men, you cannot be a good child of God. Let us learn this today. Amen
Rev Fr. Bosco
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The LORD said to me: Go buy yourself a linen loincloth; wear it on your loins, but do not put it in water.
I bought the loincloth, as the LORD commanded, and put it on.
A second time the word of the LORD came to me thus: Take the loincloth which you bought and are wearing, and go now to the Parath; there hide it in a cleft of the rock.
Obedient to the LORD's command, I went to the Parath and buried the loincloth.
After a long interval, the LORD said to me: Go now to the Parath and fetch the loincloth which I told you to hide there.
Again I went to the Parath, sought out and took the loincloth from the place where I had hid it.
But it was rotted, good for nothing! Then the message came to me from the LORD:
Thus says the LORD: So also I will allow the pride of Judah to rot, the great pride of Jerusalem.
This wicked people who refuse to obey my words, who walk in the stubbornness of their hearts,
and follow strange gods to serve and adore them, shall be like this loincloth which is good for nothing.
For, as close as the loincloth clings to a man's loins, so had I made the whole house of Israel
and the whole house of Judah cling to me, says the LORD; to be my people, my renown, my praise, my beauty.
But they did not listen. (Jeremiah 13:1-11)
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