“If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away from you, for it is better for you that one of your members should perish than that your whole body should go to hell. ” Let’s ask Jesus for grace, so that we always have a heart ready to love God and neighbor, free from sin’s bonds.
The Gospel is part of the Sermon on the Mount, the first of the great speeches in which Saint Matthew summarizes Jesus’ teaching about the Kingdom of God. Jesus describes in detail the attitudes we should maintain about the Law, to God, to our neighbor, and prayer. At the beginning of the talk, he describes in detail the Beatitudes, which depict the face of Jesus Christ and show his love. Here, Jesus teaches us the fullness of the Law and invites us to go one step further, to live the Christian life not as commandments to be fulfilled but as attitudes to be achieved. Blessed means blessed. The Beatitudes are our path to happiness.
In this context, we should understand today’s gospel. Jesus descends to specific details to achieve the fullness of the Law.
On the occasion of the provision on adultery (cf. Ex 20:14; Deut 5:18), Jesus calls for high respect for others, which is the basis of the Law. If adultery consists in seizing a married person for personal gratification, it must not be done internally either, where the same sin is committed, even if not externally: “he has committed adultery in his heart” (v. 28). A teaching that calls for the surrender of the fullness of the heart. To be blessed and to achieve greater happiness, we must have a pure heart, a heart in love, where there is no place for selfishness, for the impure thoughts of the human heart.
Jesus also talks about the ancient practice of letting go. The law of Moses established the obligation of repudiation: a document signed by the husband authorizing the wife to be taken by another man. However, to emphasize the greatness and dignity of the marriage union with a woman, Jesus makes all rejections invalid because they still expose the woman and the one who received her to adultery.
Master urges us always to look within. Sin is not only an external but also an internal act. It harms us because it distances us from God and our neighbor. Therefore, the ability to overcome internal temptation predisposes us to be freer people because we have room for God, and for others, we are more able to love.
Jesus calls us to always look at the inner roots of our sins. Let’s ask him for grace so that we always have a heart ready to love God and neighbor, freed from the bonds of sin.
