September 29, 2024.
“Now John answered Him, saying, “Teacher, we saw someone who does not follow us casting out demons in Your name, and we forbade him because he does not follow us.” But Jesus said, “Do not forbid him, for no one who works a miracle in My name can soon afterward speak evil of Me. For he who is not against us is on our side.” (Mark 9, 38-40)
This week’s Word of Life invites us to put in to practice the virtue currently in fashion of “tolerance”, but understood in a Christian way. There is room for everyone in the Church – Jesus tells his disciples – because everyone fits in the living Heart of the Father, everyone including the most notorious sinners. This must lead us to an attitude of acceptance and not rejection; of comprehension of our fellowman including his weaknesses and sins. However, this comprehension – and here is where differentiate ourselves from the secular way of living tolerance – doesn’t mean we have to agree with those who are wrong, that we have to say that evil doesn’t exist or that, lead by our understanding of the sinner, we must say that what he does doesn’t matter and he can keep sinning. Christ, who is always our role model, ate with the public sinners of his time – the Roman tax collectors and the prostitutes – and didn’t shrink from confronting a hypocritical Puritan society to defend an adulterer that was going to be stoned. However, to the tax collectors he said stop stealing, to the prostitutes earn an honest living, and to the adulterer sin no more. Let us be firm about the sin and tolerant and merciful with the sinner. It is enough that he repents, so that he changes, that he wants to change, to already receive the embrace of the Father. We can’t forget, everyone fits in the Church, provided that they want to be saints, although they aren’t yet. Thanks to this we all fit.
Intention: Practice mercy and a well understood tolerance that consists in accepting legitimate differences between us and our fellowmen. Don’t accept the sin but do welcome the sinner.