Friday, July 30, 2010

1Kings 21, 25-26 He became completely abominable

(1Kings 21, 25-26) He became completely abominable

[25] Indeed, no one gave himself up to the doing of evil in the sight of the LORD as did Ahab, urged on by his wife Jezebel. [26] He became completely abominable by following idols, just as the Amorites had done, whom the LORD drove out before the Israelites.

(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).

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