GOD’S WORD FOR THE DAY (based on Catholic Liturgical Readings)
DATE: 16TH JUNE 2017
FRIDAY OF THE TENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
FIRST READING: 2Corinthians 4:7-15
PSALM: Psalm 116:10-11, 15-18
GOSPEL: Matthew 5:27-32
THEME: THE DIGNITY OF WOMANHOOD
Like the menace of illegal mining (galamsey) where lands and rivers have been destroyed with impunity, some men see women as nothing more than a piece of flesh to be sexually exploited. These ‘sexual illegal miners’ (sim) reduce women to objects and with their ‘pickaxe and shovel’, they jump from one virgin forest to another. They have made themselves like sim cards that enter into almost every phone. Even if they are married, they cannot take their eyes off a beautiful woman who passes by. Unfortunately, our socio-economic environment either implicitly or explicitly perpetuate this corruptive perception of womanhood. For example, seductively dressed women are made to stand next to objects for sale in a bid to attract men to purchase the objects in question.
The Gospel Reading is a continuation of the ‘Sermon on the mount’, with particular reference to the six antithesis (cf. Mt. 5:21-28). In the text for today, Jesus makes two important statements that uphold the dignity of womanhood. In the first statement Jesus says: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Mt. 5:27-28). It is a call to see value in a woman rather than to devalue ourselves with vain thoughts about women. There is a Jewish proverb which says, “It is better to talk to a woman and think of God, than talk to God and think of a woman.”
In the second statement, Jesus says, “It has also been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a writ of dismissal’. But I say this to you, everyone who divorces his wife, except for the case of an illicit marriage, makes her an adulteress; and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery” (Mt. 5:31-32). In a patriarchal society where divorce and remarriage were permitted in certain instances (cf. Deut. 24:1-4), Jesus challenges the status quo and places premium on the indissolubility of licit marriages. I came across a Judeo-Christian proverb which puts it this way: “When a divorced man marries a divorced woman, there are four people in that marital bed.”
The two statements of Jesus in our Gospel text is a call to sanitise our minds with regard to the one Adam calls, “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”. Women are not pieces of paper that we throw into the bin after we have finished using them. Women have something more to offer – something more than fleeting pleasures. It is safe to say that without a woman, every man stands incomplete.
PRAYER: Lord Jesus, help me to see the true value in every woman. Curb my passions that I may not lustfully trample underfoot she who is beautiful in your eyes. Amen
Andrews Obeng, svd
DIVINE WORD MISSIONARIES
BIBLICAL PASTORAL MINISTRY
(Ghana Province)
“May the darkness of sin and the night of unbelief vanish before the light of the Word and the Spirit of grace. And may the heart of Jesus live in the hearts of all people” (St. Arnold Janssen).