Saturday 5^th April – Saturday of the 4^th week of Lent

Reflection: John 7:40-52

BEWARE OF ENVY

The Church classifies envy as one of the seven capital sins. These capital sins, including pride, sloth, lust, gluttony, avarice and wrath open the door to greater mortal and venial sins (CCC 1866). They are sins that man can easily overlook without realizing the great harm they cause him. Today’s Gospel reading puts before us the Pharisees and Scribes rejection of Jesus. At the very root of this rejection were the sins of envy and pride. They saw something in Jesus that they did not possess: His divine power and teaching authority. Indeed, even His pattern of living was a challenge to them but instead of seeking to know if He was truly the Christ, they responded with envy.

Envy prevents an individual from attaining the good that he ought to. It clouds the mind from reality and makes the person at war with his own self while he thinks he is really at war with the object of the envy. It closes the doors to God’s blessings and suppresses the voice and working of the Holy Spirit within a man, meanwhile it opens the door to a variety of sinful thoughts and actions including slander, hatred and murder.

Dear friends, everything we have and are is a gift from God. Never allow yourself to get envious of a colleague who seems to have more. Learn to appreciate the good in others in sincerity because we were all created to complement one another. When envious thoughts creep up in our minds, let us immediately open up to God, ask for His cleansing power over our thoughts and ask the Holy Spirit to strengthen us.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, please deliver me from the grip of envy. Help me to appreciate the good in others so that we may all work together to do Your will. Amen.

KNOW YOUR FAITH: YOUCAT 466 What is envy, and how can you fight against it?

Envy is sadness and annoyance at the sight of another’s well-being and the desire to acquire unjustly what others have. Anyone who wishes other people ill commits a serious sin. Envy decreases when we try to rejoice more and more in the accomplishments and gifts of others, when we believe in God’s benevolent providence for ourselves as well, and when we set our hearts on true wealth, which consists of the fact that we already participate in God’s life through the Holy Spirit.

HIDE A TREASURE: “Now the works of the flesh are plain:…envy, drunkenness, carousing and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God” Galatians 5: 19, 21 RSV-CE

Readings for today: Jeremiah 11: 18-20; Psalm 1-3, 9-12; John 7: 40 – 52