TEAR IT OUT AND THROW IT AWAY

1Kings 19,9a.11-16; Ps 26; Mt 5,27-32
15 JUNE
There are two types of scandals: active and passive ones. The active one is done by us, when we transgress the commandments in front of other people. For our bad deeds, many souls can even get lost. The Lord will also ask us account of this on the day of judgment. Saint Paul asks Christians to also avoid “the scandal of the little ones in the faith”. The action itself is not a sin. Our conscience and our science of truth and doctrine are not the only principle of action. The conscience of the other must also be taken into account. We are asked to use the brothers’ unformed conscience as a yardstick for evaluation and discernment. Nobody must be lost for our science and doctrine.

Now in regard to meat sacrificed to idols: we realize that “all of us have knowledge”; knowledge inflates with pride, but love builds up. If anyone supposes he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if one loves God, one is known by him. So about the eating of meat sacrificed to idols: we know that “there is no idol in the world,” and that “there is no God but one.” Indeed, even though there are so-called gods in heaven and on earth (there are, to be sure, many “gods” and many “lords”), yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom all things are and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things are and through whom we exist. But not all have this knowledge. There are some who have been so used to idolatry up until now that, when they eat meat sacrificed to idols, their conscience, which is weak, is defiled. Now food will not bring us closer to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, nor are we better off if we do. But make sure that this liberty of yours in no way becomes a stumbling block to the weak. If someone sees you, with your knowledge, reclining at table in the temple of an idol, may not his conscience too, weak as it is, be “built up” to eat the meat sacrificed to idols? Thus through your knowledge, the weak person is brought to destruction, the brother for whom Christ died. When you sin in this way against your brothers and wound their consciences, weak as they are, you are sinning against Christ. Therefore, if food causes my brother to sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I may not cause my brother to sin (1Cor 8,1-13).

The passive scandal is the one suffered by us. The spiritual, material, physical, family and social disasters it produces cannot be counted. We know that David, for an ungoverned gaze, became an adulterer and a homicide. This sin has cost him an internal war and the loss of many of his soldiers. Jesus asks his disciples to watch out so that they never fall into these scandals. Today the passive scandal has become normality, everyday life and a lifestyle. Rather, we use the passive scandal with art and mastery to convince the hearts that there is no evil in evil, that there is no sin in sin, that there is no transgression in the transgression of the Law of God. Jesus knows the power of devastation and invites to be on our guard.

“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. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body thrown into Gehenna. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body go into Gehenna. “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife must give her a bill of divorce.’ But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

We know that many adulteries and many divorces are the result of both passive and active scandal. Everyone is warned. Every disciple of Christ the Lord has to pull his eyes out and cut off his hands to avoid becoming a prey to scandal. The custody of the eyes and of the whole body always obliges. The obligation is universal and absolute.

Most Pure Virgin, Angels and Saints do not allow the scandal to take possession of us.