There’s nothing more important than examining our thoughts, words, and deeds in light of the following reading. Have we kept the Commandments so that we’ll live? Have we stretched out our hands and chosen life, or death? Good, or evil?
Sirach 15: 15-20
“If you choose you can keep the commandments, they will save you;
if you trust in God, you too shall live;
He has set before you fire and water
to whichever you choose, stretch forth your hand.
Before man are life and death, good and evil,
whichever he chooses shall be given him.
Immense is the wisdom of the Lord;
He is mighty in power, and all-seeing.
The eyes of God are on those who fear Him;
He understands man’s every deed.
No one does He command to act unjustly,”
Many choose to stretch forth their hands toward fire. Rather than trying to get a grip on the wisdom of God, His prophets, and Church, they have chosen to grasp, the “wisdom” of society and the desires of their vanity. The errors they have chosen keep them defenseless from those who want them enslaved to their ideologies or dead.
Each of us has been given free will. Each has freely chosen what we have grasped. The last line in the reading tells us that He does not force anyone to make a choice that will destroy them.
The last line tells us that He does not order Moslems to act unjustly. It is not irrational to wonder if, since the legalization of abortion in the once-Christian nations, the Moslems have become His sword of vengeance, drawn against those who have chosen to stretch forth their hands toward death and evil.
Things are tightening up.
