DAILY MEDITATION: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Liturgical day: Thursday of the First Week of Advent

Gospel text (Mt 7,21.24-27): Jesus said to his disciples, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven”.

“Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock. And everyone who listens to these words of mine but does not act on them will be like a fool who built his house on sand. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. And it collapsed and was completely ruined.”

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Fr. Jean-Charles TISSOT
(Freiburg, Switzerland)

Today, the Lord pronounced these words at the end of His 'Sermon on the Mount' where He bestows a new and deeper meaning to the Commandments of the Old Testament, the 'words' of God to men. He talks as the Son of God, and as such, He demands us “to receive what I say to you”, as very significant words: words of eternal life which must be put into practice, and not only to be heard - with the risk of forgetting them or just be satisfied admiring them or admiring their author - but without any personal involvement.

“To build a house on sand” (cf. Mt 7, 26) is an image to describe a foolish behavior that leads us nowhere and ends up in a failure in life, after a long and painful effort to build up something. “Bene curris, sed extra viam', said St. Augustine, which we could translate as: “You run well, but out of the way”. What a shame reaching just there: the time of trial, of the storms and floods that inevitably fill up our life!

The Lord wants to teach us how to set up a solid groundwork, the base of which originates in our effort to act according to His teachings, living by them every day in the midst of small problems He will try to direct. Thus, our daily resolutions to live by Christ’s teachings must end up in tangible results, which despite not being definitive, can still allow us to achieve out of them joy and gratitude at night, at the time of examining our conscience. The joy of having achieved a small victory over ourselves is a preparation for other battles, and the strength will not fail us - with the grace of God — to persevere until the end.

Source: evangeli.net