Word to the Wise
Friday, June 13, 2014 - Friday in the 10th Week in Ordinary Time
[1 Kgs 19:9a, 11-16 and Matt 5:27-32]You have heard that it was said, "You shall not commit adultery." But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
JUNE 13 ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA , O.F.M.
Almost every offense against or abuse of women finds its condemnation in Jesus' words today. He goes beyond the external act of adultery to the root of the problem in the heart. President Jimmy Carter once caused a sensation when he admitted to a popular magazine that he had experienced "lust in his heart," which caused a most unfortunate trivialization of those words because they point to the cause of terrible abuse.
No human being should be treated as an object or commodity, even if that treatment does not find external expression in the horrible crimes of rape, human trafficking, and denial of fundamental dignity of women by preventing them from obtaining education and decent health care. It is true that these offenses are committed against males as well as females but women suffer disproportionately. It seems a blasphemy to me when such abuse is given a religious foundation! Jesus' words today should remove any possibility of religious justification for abuse of women.
If women could unite more firmly against the scourge of pornography -all the way from the checkout lines at grocery stores to the awful plague of internet porn - a tremendous amount of good could happen But such opposition is difficult to maintain on a sustained basis. If the human heart can resist God, it can resist almost anything. Yet only a sustained effort will bring any results that are lasting. Jesus' words in the Sermon on the Mount should remind us all of the importance of this effort! AMEN