THE ALL-SEEING EYE OF GOD

“His eyes are on those who fear him; he notes every action of man. He never commanded anyone to be godless; he has given no one permission to sin.” These words from the Book of Ecclesiasticus (today’s first reading) remind us of the all-seeing eye of God.

     God’s all-seeing eye does not aim to control us but to set us free. But to do this God, too, must see deep into our hearts and tell us difficult truths about what he finds there. These truths hurt us but we need to know them if we are to escape becoming addicted to the sin that can so easily control and enslave us. So our Lord, in the Gospel, speaks of murder and adultery. They are serious sins. Most of us do not commit them. But God speaks to us in today’s Mass not only of these sins but of what lies behind them, anger and lust.

     Which of us has not been guilty, and often, of falling into these sins? Think of the smouldering anger we can feel against a person who has wronged us. Perhaps it doesn’t result in murder, but our Lord is telling us that the point of the commandment against murder is not just that we should stop short of killing, but that we shouldn’t even begin to go anywhere near the thought.

     It is easy to see how we can become enslaved to this kind of thing – most of us know of it in families or about how it can happen between warring tribes and nations. Every time we allow it to happen to us we become a little less human and a little more enslaved to sin. Not that we should make the mistake that anger is always wrong. Sometimes it is wrong NOT to be angry, at sin or injustice.

     St John Chrysostom, writing about words from today’s Gospel says this: “He who is angry without cause shall be judged; but he who is angry with cause shall not be judged. For if there were no anger, neither teaching would profit, nor judgments hold, nor crimes be controlled. So that he who on just cause is not angry, is in sin; for an unreasonable patience sows vices, breeds carelessness, and invites the good as well as the bad to do evil.” And St Thomas Aquinas reminds us that though our Lord was without sin he was not without anger – such as he had when he drove the dealers from the Temple in Jerusalem. Anger at the right things gives us the energy to break free from the evils that can enslave us.     ~ Fr. Paul Dobson