Choosing Virtue and Rejecting Wickedness

In today's first reading, Ezekiel 19: 21-28, God reminds us, through the prophet, that, "if a wicked [person] turns away from all the sins he/[she] has committed, if [this person] keeps all my statues and does what is right and just, he/[she] shall surely live, ...not die. None of the crimes he/[she] committed shall be remembered...; [this person] shall live become of the virtue he/[she] practiced." And the opposite is true of the person who abandons living a virtuous life and resorts to a life of wickedness. None of the good that person has done shall be remembered and such a person shall die as a consequence of turning to evil and abandoning the good.

Those are strong words that speaks of God's justice. Good leads to an abundance of life while evil leads to death, the absence of life!  Abandoning doing what is right grieves God, who does not rejoice in any one of His sons or daughters walking away from a life of virtue.  God, I believe, weeps when we turn toward evil, lured to such by Satan's lies that such is rewarding, wise,  pleasurable and a producer of  happiness and security. Satan could not be further from the truth that Jesus teaches when He says: Those who save their lives will lose it and those who lose their lives in goodness, in virtue, in denial of self and in self-sacrificing love will save it! At another place in the Gospels, Jesus reminds us that when we  pour out their lives in full measure, we will receive the same in return.  In another passage, Jesus says to us: Do unto others as you would have them do to you!

May you and I heed Jesus' words and trust His promises of fullness of life to those who follow His way!

Choice of Virtue or Sin

Today’s readings,  Ez 18: 21-28 and Mt. 5: 20-26, both address the importance of choosing virtue, of righting the wrongs we have done towards others and ourselves, of turning away from sinful attitudes towards others and ourselves—of letting go of our resentments and our grudges that we hold against one another or against ourselves, of no longer holding others or ourselves in disdain.  Ezekiel tells us that if a sinner, turns away from all the sins he [she] has committed, if he [she] keeps all [God’s] statues and does what is right and just, he [she] shall surely live, he [she] shall not die.”  On the other hand, if a virtuous person “turns from the path of virtue to do evil, the same kinds of abominable things that the wicked…does, can he [she] do this and still live? None of his [her] virtuous deeds shall be remembered, because he [she] has broken faith and committed sin….”

Those are strong words and, from time to time, each of us is both the sinner and then, again, the virtuous and repentant one. From time to time, each of us turns away from sin to virtue and then, again, away from virtue to sin.  With the psalmist in today’s responsorial psalm, we pray:

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord;

Lord, hear my voice!

Let your ears be attentive

to my voice in supplication.

If you, O Lord, mark iniquities,

Lord, who can stand?

But with you is forgiveness,

that you may be revered.

I trust in the Lord;

my soul trusts in his word.

My soul  waits for the Lord

more than sentinels wait for the dawn.

Let Israel [let each of us] wait for the Lord.

For with the Lord is kindness

And with him is plenteous redemption;

And [God] will redeem Israel [and each of us]

From all their [our] iniquities.