Monday, 32 Week of Ordinary Time

Monday (Memorial of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini) 

 Love justice and goodness, the first reading urges.
Seek God with integrity of heart; for perverse counsels (lying & deception) separates from each other and form God.

Lying and deception to those we are meant to serve is deceitful. Lying and deception to those you are meant to love causes pain. Lying and deception to yourself cause dis-ease and anxiety.  Lying and deception before God is foolish.

In the first cases lying and deception it is simply wrong for all the suffering it causes. It is sinful. In the latter case deception is useless for God knows our hearts.

We must come to each other and to God as authentic, sincere, humble and kind.

Others deserve the truth. God requires it, It is foolish to be false because the Spirit of the Lord fills the world searching out falsehood, lies and deception. Thankfully the Spirit also heals and makes all things new for those who desire the freedom truth brings.

Because we are children, in God’s eyes, we are sometimes selfish, headstrong and foolish. We are sometimes simply wrong.
We make mistakes and bad choices. We live as human beings in this world and so scripture says simply sin will inevitably occur. This is the human condition and sin happens.

We know there is a remedy for those seeking healing. But, we hear today woe to the one who knowingly causes grief and hurt to others. Woe to the one who knowingly causes others to sin. Woe to the one who knowingly profits from or contributes to the structures of sin. Structures that marginalize and limit.

Jesus is clear. It is a dire warning - It would be better for them if a millstone were put around their neck and they be thrown into the sea than for them to cause one of these little ones to sin.

 This is a hard truth. To sin (part and parcel with being human) is one thing. To knowingly cause others to sin is another. One is forgivable and other, seemingly not.