Friday March 3, 2023

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Good News Reflections:
Making scripture meaningful to your daily life
by Terry Modica

“Once God’s love fills our emptiness, there’s no room left for anger.”

Good News Reflection for:

Friday of the First Week of Lent
March 3, 2023

Today’s Prayer:

Dear Father, I need Your help so that neither hatred nor anger creep into my heart. May Your Holy Spirit fill me so that I can respond with love when I am hurt. Amen.

Subscribe to Today’s Saint Quote & Prayer:
gnm.org/SaintQuotes/

Today’s Readings:

Ezekiel 18:21-28
Psalm 130:1-8
Matthew 5:20-26
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030323.cfm
USCCB Podcast of the Readings:
bible.usccb.org/podcasts/audio/daily-mass-reading-podcast-march-3-2023

Choose anger or healing

In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus speaks to us about anger. He makes us aware of the increasing dangers of anger by referring to increasingly disastrous results in the angry person’s soul. At the lowest level, anger in the heart results in “judgment,” which in that day meant the Jewish local court where the easiest punishments were meted out.

Then, he describes how anger in the heart becomes anger that kills: To use abusive language destroys self-esteem. It’s belittling. It kills the spirit. The abuser must now face a trial before the Sanhedrin, which was the highest judicial body.

Finally, Jesus warns that holding someone in contempt is the worst of all forms of anger. To hate a person so much as to see no value in him or her is to condemn oneself to Gehenna. “Gehenna” was the name of a nearby valley where children were burned in sacrifices to the gods. The Jews borrowed the name to illustrate the concept of punishment by fire; today we call it “hell.”

Abortion is such a sin, because it sees no value in the unborn child. However, even in this, God’s forgiveness and healing is very nearby. The Sacrament of Confession re-opens the door to heaven, where we will someday be happily reunited with these children.

The rest of this scripture passage is God’s remedy for the times we feel angry. In essence, Jesus says: Go and do whatever is necessary to be reconciled with whomever has made you angry. This, he points out, is even more important than worshiping God. We are not loving others as God loves us if we are refusing to give someone our time and a desire to reconcile. Even when we cannot be together, we can give love through words that offer reconciliation — and if the person has died, we can still do this through Jesus.

How genuine can our worship really be if anger has replaced love in our hearts? Since God is love, worship that’s mixed with hateful anger is hollow and hypocritical, a slap on God’s face, a crushing stomp on the Eucharist.

Anger as an emotion is not evil. Feelings are neither right nor wrong, they’re merely a temporary reflection of what’s going on inside of us at the moment. It’s usually rooted in the emptiness of not feeling loved. Filling that void with anger deceptively feels good, and it becomes a sin when it festers in us long enough to damage others.

We receive healing when we choose to fill the void with love. By choosing to give love instead of anger, we let God’s love penetrate us, and once God’s love fills our emptiness, there’s no room left for anger.

Jesus got angry about sin. It’s okay to feel justifiable anger. It’s what we do with the feeling that matters. Do we allow God to use it for loving purposes or do we use it as a weapon that hurts others?

For more on this, see our podcast: “How to forgive when it’s difficult” @ footstepstoheaven.com/healing/how-to-forgive-when-its-difficult/

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