Skegness, 20th August 2006

 

Everybody is right.
Do you think so?
Every religion is the same.
Do you agree?
Everybody can do what he wants.
Do you mind?
It has the same value to be homosexual or heterosexual, to get married four times or to be faithful until the death, to go to church or to pray at home, to have sex before the marriage or to be a virgin, to cheat the state or to be honest, to look after the parents or to accept euthanasia, to use contraceptives or natural methods of birth control, to be generous or to be greedy, to dedicate your free time for a parish or to spend it only in the casino, bingo, pub, restaurants… et cetera. It has the same value.
Do you believe so?

Look at today’s first reading.
There are the wisdom and the foolishness. The wisdom says to the fool:
“Leave you folly and you will live. Walk in the ways of perception”.
The ways of perception are not the same as the ways of ignorance. 

Let us look at the responsorial Psalm.
The Psalmist says: 
“Keep your tongue from evil, turn aside from evil and do good, seek and strive after peace.”
To do good and to do wrong it isn’t the same. 

May we look at the second reading.
Saint Paul says:
“Be careful about the sort of lives you lead, like intelligent and not like senseless people”.
“Do not be thoughtless but recognise what is the will of the Lord.”
“Do not drug yourselves with vine, be fill with the Spirit”.
To be intelligent and to be senseless it is not the same.

Look at the Gospel, please.
Jesus says:
“If you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you”.
“This is the bread come down from heaven; not like the bread our ancestors ate, they are dead, but anyone who eats this bread will for ever.”
To eat the bread of Jesus and the bread that Jews ate is not the same.
To have life and to not have life it is not the same.

Dear friends!
Pluralism doesn’t mean equivalence.
A diversity of opinions doesn’t mean that all have equal value.
I know the Bible speaks the different language as the modern world, but it is our chance and choice to think, agree, mind and believe in God and not in current opinions.