Word Of Life

If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life crippled than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna (Mark 9, 45)

These are shocking words. Jesus says that we should cut off our foot or our hand, that we should pluck out our eyes if they cause us to sin. We know that these words are not to be taken literally, even though they retain all the power of a two-edged sword (see Hebrews, 4,12).

The meaning is that in the face of whatever might be an occasion of sin we must be ready to give up everything, even things and persons dear to us, rather than to lose what is truly valuable - "to enter into life", that is, communion with God and our salvation.

These words in the Gospels - "causes you to sin" - indicate all that stands in the way between us and God, hindering us from carrying out his will; anything that would be like a rod in a wheel to prevent us from following Jesus, like a trap to make us fall into sin. There are moments in which the eye, the hand, the foot "cause us to sin", that is, they would like to bring us to the point of denying Jesus, of betraying him, of preferring other things to him.

Santa Scorese, 23, of Bari, in the south of Italy, understood this very well. In 1991 she preferred to be killed rather than lose her purity when she was threatened by a young man her age. God was worth more to her than life.

If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life crippled than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna (Hell).

This Word of Life unmasks the "old self" (see Ephesians 4, 22) in us. In fact, sin doesn't come from things, from oustide, but from within us, from our heart. The "old self" lives in us when we give un to the allurement of evil and when we satisfy our worst inclinations: selfishness, hunger for power, for glory, for money...

The "old self" must surrender to the "new self" (see Ephesians 4, 24): Jesus in us.

Are we capable on our own of uprooting the inordinate passions of our heart and giving birth to divine life within us? Jesus alone, through his death, can make our "old self" die and, through his resurrection, transform us into new men and women. He can give us courage and determination in the battle against evil, and a faithful and radical love for good. From him comes that inner freedom, that peace and inexpressible joy which lifts us above all the ugliness of the world and enables us to experience even now an anticipation of heaven.

If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life crippled than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna.

The "new self" in us must grow and be safeguarded against the dangers of the "old self". What is our part? I wrote in 1949: "There are many ways to clean a room - picking up one straw at a time, using a small or big broom, or a big vacuum cleaner, etc. Or else we could move to another room to be where it is clean, and everything would be taken care of. That is how it is in our journey to holiness. Rather than working hard to remove one fault after another, we can immediately put ourselves aside and allow Jesus to live within us. We can live transferred into another: in our neighbour, for example, who moment by moment is beside us, living his or her life in all fullness."

To love! This is the whole of Jesus' doctrine. To refine or purify our heart and make it capable of listening, of identifying with the problems and worries of our neighbours, of sharing their joys and sufferings, of breaking down the barriers that still divide us, of overcoming judgments and criticisms, of coming out from our isolation to put ourselves at the disposal of the needy, the lonely, to build everywhere the unity Jesus desired.

If we live in this way, God will draw us into an ever more intimate union with Himself and make us almost inflexible and invulnerable in the face of the errors and attractions of the world.

If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life crippled than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna.

Jesus also tells us to energetically "cut off" these realities (things, persons, situations) that could be occasions of sin for us. It is the "deny yourself" of the Gospel (see Mark 8, 34). A Christian has the courage to go against selfish tendencies so that they don't become his or her lifestlyle.

During this month let us go out of ourselves by loving those around us and let us cut off attachment to all that we should not love. Let us clean up all that needs to be removed from our heart. No sacrifice is too great for communion with God. Every cut will blossom into joy in our heart, true joy, that which the world does not know.