Tuesday, April 22, 2008

1Cor 3, 2-3 There is jealousy and rivalry among you

(1Cor 3, 2-3) There is jealousy and rivalry among you
[2] I fed you milk, not solid food, because you were unable to take it. Indeed, you are still not able, even now, [3] for you are still of the flesh. While there is jealousy and rivalry among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving in an ordinary human way?
(CCC 2538) The tenth commandment requires that envy be banished from the human heart. When the prophet Nathan wanted to spur King David to repentance, he told him the story about the poor man who had only one ewe lamb that he treated like his own daughter and the rich man who, despite the great number of his flocks, envied the poor man and ended by stealing his lamb (Cf. 2 Sam 12:14). Envy can lead to the worst crimes (Cf. Gen 4:3-7; 1 Kings 21:1-29). "Through the devil's envy death entered the world" (Wis 2:24): We fight one another, and envy arms us against one another.... If everyone strives to unsettle the Body of Christ, where shall we end up? We are engaged in making Christ's Body a corpse.... We declare ourselves members of one and the same organism, yet we devour one another like beasts (St. John Chrysostom, Hom. in 2 Cor. 27, 3-4: PG 61, 588). (CCC 2541) The economy of law and grace turns men's hearts away from avarice and envy. It initiates them into desire for the Sovereign Good; it instructs them in the desires of the Holy Spirit who satisfies man's heart. The God of the promises always warned man against seduction by what from the beginning has seemed "good for food… a delight to the eyes… to be desired to make one wise" (Gen 3:6).

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