How to be or become a follower of Jesus Christ in the world and in your situation«By their fruits you will know them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? ».
If thinking about our practical life, the ordinary life that most of us live, the Synoptic Gospels are a veritable mine of teachings, precious for the Christian who seeks to put the following of Jesus into practice in everyday life, in the own living environment and human relationships. Particularly in relationships with others, Jesus often recommended prudence.
It's not a matter of a priori distrust, because every person deserves to be considered good and reliable until proven otherwise, but of the criterion that allows us to evaluate whether they actually are, whether they are pretending or trying to deceive others on principle.
Today Our Lord suggests to us a criterion which consists in examining the fruits of the actions of the people with whom we enter into a relationship, that is, the material consequences (perhaps can we pick grapes from thorns?).
Jesus curses the tree that bears no fruit. To produce fruit
we try to be an example to others with the example of our life
The criterion is therefore the judgment based on that of good or evil that the person does, or in general of what derives from his actions.
TO UNDERSTAND WHERE OTHERS ARE WRONG I HAVE FIRST TO UNDERSTAND WHERE I AM WRONG.
The examination of our conscience.
An aspect of consideration and love for our neighbor, very advisable in order not to make a mistake in examining ourselves dispassionately, consists in considering ourselves with the same criterion with which we see the other people. Let's do it as if we were an external observer, because we are aware of being in the presence of God, who sees everything and knows everything.
Gesù ti vede sempre. Con Lui non puoi fingere
di essere quello che non sei .At the end of each day, in conscience, in the light of the Gospel, we examine our behavior during the day and our actions.
This, if done with diligence, is used to try to understand if we have failed in something, and how to eventually be able to rectify and fix it the next day.
Deep down in some cases even this IS LOVE, do to others what you would like to be done to you in the same circumstances, or DON'T do to others what you would NOT like to be done to you.
With the dictatorship of relativism and the corollary of the confusion of consciences that has become increasingly popular today distinguishing good from evil and their consequences is not so easy.
It is not easy to distinguish the effective evil from the effective good, because as it is often said, the devil presents himself in the guise of an Angel in order to then be able to deceive you, while sometimes it could be the opposite. But the facts always remain, the concrete consequences of INDIVIDUAL actions.
IN THIS RESPECT IT IS CLEAR THAT LEGISLATIVE AND GOVERNMENT ACTIONS although they have the same source as individual morality, for many obvious reasons they cannot be tackled in practice in the same way and with the same solutions, as instead many naive people think , for example as it seems that certain prelates even do, despite though they possess a very highest intellectual level.
But even these are things that can be recognized by the fruits they produce.
You will recognize them by their fruits[..]
End of commentary: the above is a personal lay meditation on the meaning of this passage. I do not intend to concern myself with what it is up to the consecrated to explain. I hope I don't sound hypocritical.
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HISTORICAL NOTE with a lay parable
Unfortunately we are all fallible human beings. It also happens that relativism and confusion, which brings with it deleterious concepts and fashions, influence legislation affecting an entire society. In reality, however, it is not a question of judging according to religious morality, but according to the negative results or damages caused by deficient or even wrong legislation. For example:
- the demographic decline of advanced countries caused by bad legislation, which produces effects that make it difficult to maintain a family. Or even from the fall of morals and bad habits resulting from materialism and hedonism, whereby few are willing to make sacrifices to have and maintain children.
Without new recruits who can then support the elderly with their work, the cycle of life is interrupted, and the current society dies. - political ideologies that produce negative effects and misery, which are generally based on social envy, such as 'distributism' and 'collectivism', while instead claiming to cloak themselves in criteria of social justice. They are the mistaken application of the evangelical precepts which, if we read the Gospels well, concern single individuals and their free will.
ENVY IS ONE OF THE CAPITAL SINS.
In fact, the cases that arise in the management of public affairs and the government problems of a community should generally submit to the dictates of the natural law, which is the only ABSOLUTE source that Jesus Christ himself offers us throughout all the synoptic gospels.
So not only in individual relationships but also if one must understand the positive or negative effect of the application of certain legislative and government criteria that contradict human nature, the natural law.
the lack of supernatural vision, which does not consider the existence of a superior being who created the world, or who thinks that matter and the universe that we know have always existed, and that everything that exists is produced by the law of chance .
This leads to materialistic selfishness, which produces destructive ideological effects. I am reminded of the 18-year-old Swedish girl who asked for and was granted euthanasia because she could not find meaning in her life.
Two practical examples : (actually there would be many topics for discussion and, if desired, an encyclopedia could be written). The method of analyzing the facts is the journalistic one which consists in asking oneself where, why, what, when, and how:
- lthe uterus for rent: the desire of people who for various reasons cannot have children, and who instead of adopting abandoned orphans pay unfortunate women who sell their bodies out of need. Something that harms the rights of human beings and the dignity of women.
Two men do not make a mother.Children
are not bought! Women's bodies are not
a commodity.Even hoping it's nothing but the desire to have a child to raise as one's own, it's a horrible abomination. THOSE WHO DEMAND IT AND DO IT COMMIT AN UNFORGIVABLE mistake: SATANIC EVIL.
Obviously whoever commits it is a godless person, a follower of collectivist or otherwise earthly religions.
They call themselves 'progressives'.
Unfortunately, however, this type of atheistic progressivism mainly pertains only to the selfish and hedonistic sexual sphere.
Committing abominations against nature is not a 'human right', but an aspect of personal freedom that society can tolerate only if it does not harm the true rights of other human beings.
- uncontrolled migrations..
A field of African laborers harvesting
tomatoes (top view). - A phenomenon is occurring today caused by rash and irresponsible actions, as they were evaluated according to economicist and ethical criteria that through carelessness (at least one hopes) did not foresee the practical consequences.
In practice, certain political decisions of an ideological nature (the claim to spread 'democracy' by violence) have accelerated the occurrence of uncontrolled migrations of hundreds of thousands of people who, paying non-negligible sums of money, move clandestinely in search of a better future.
If in fact those who have promoted and promote certain facts foresee and know the consequences, they are committing real crimes against humanity.
These people came because the propaganda of a better
future induced them to find themselves sleeping on the ground
The problem also concerns certain charitable organizations that politically support these migrations, ostensibly for ethical and humanitarian reasons, in reality because the phenomenon offers an important source of income and perhaps even employment, at the expense of the community that pays them. Further exploitation of the good citizens work product of.
IThe lucky ones will pick tomatoes at 5 euros an hour along with seasonal laborers from Eastern Europe
Shipwreck survivors have disembarked. But then what will happen to them?
A secular parable: "Those who help you do not always want your good and do it selflessly."
That year the winter was colder than usual. A sparrow who had not found a single seed to eat was shivering crouched in the frozen dry grass, and thought by now that he would freeze to death.
At that moment, one of the cows that were returning to the barn passed by him, and the sparrow suddenly found himself immersed in a pile of warm though stinky stuff.
not always those who help you want your trueHow nice and warm, I am saved, thought the sparrow. But then he began to worry because after a while the material in which he was immersed was cooling and solidifying. How to get out?
good and does so selflessly
At that point a wild cat passing by noticed that there was a sparrow stuck, and gently began with his claws to remove the stuff from around him.
Licking his whiskers, the cat said to the sparrow: don't worry, stay still and don't run away that now I will free you ...
Don't worry ! the mercy of Jesus
is INFINITE
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 7,15-20.
Jesus said to his disciples: "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but underneath are ravenous wolves.
By their fruits you will know them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?
Just so, every good tree bears good fruit, and a rotten tree bears bad fruit.
A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a rotten tree bear good fruit.
Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
So by their fruits you will know them."
Copyright © Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, USCCB
