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22 The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is open, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eye is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness. Indeed, if the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
24 “No one can serve two masters; either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. 25 “Therefore I say to you: Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, but your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not rather better than she? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? 28 Why do you care about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow! You neither labor nor spin. 29 But I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory was dressed like one of these. 30 For if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is found today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, you of little faith? ? 31 So do not be anxious, saying: What shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? Or what should we wear? 32 For all these things the nations seek. Because your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 So do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious about its own things. Its evil is enough today.

Explanation - about my parish bulletin:

The eye, in the Jewish tradition, is the threshold to the human moral and religious system. In ancient times, the opinion prevailed that vision occurred when a ray of rays emanated from the eye and struck an object. Then the thing becomes visible. The simple eye is the eye full of light, and it is a reflection of the luminous body that indicates a person illuminated by virtue and righteousness. As for the evil eye, it is the dark eye that traps light, and according to Jewish tradition, it refers to a selfish, spiteful person.

“No one can serve two masters…” This is an echo of the first commandment of the Old Testament, which says, “The Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:4; Mark 21:29- 30) “You shall have no other gods before me” (Deuteronomy 5:6). Worship is for the one God, besides whom there is no god, and not for the idols we make.

Idols are the deification of our desires and inclinations and are an affirmation of our authority. Money is the primary enabler of power, so it is the god that makes it easy for us to dominate and enslave others. This contradicts the Christian belief that absolute authority belongs to God alone, and God wished to reveal it to us through His love as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself redeemed us on the cross. Thus, clinging to our own authority is a disdain for God’s authority and a rejection of divine love.

“Do not worry about yourselves...” does not necessarily mean that we should be absolutely indifferent, but it means that we should not turn our daily concerns into obsessions that dominate our lives. We must be aware that our primary concern is in the Kingdom of God and our basic longing is for the divine life revealed in this Kingdom. We are all, without exception, called to this life, and the Lord Jesus Christ achieved it for everyone through his incarnation and life on earth.

Our basic need is for God, and God provides for our other needs. It is clear that He is the main reason for our existence, and He, out of His great love, wanted to make Himself concerned with the smallest details of our lives, as the Lord Jesus says, “Even the very hairs of your head are numbered” (Matthew 10:30), and today’s Gospel comes as confirmation of this will of God, as is evident from the parables of the sparrows and the lilies.

The sparrow was the cheapest commodity in those days, as the price of two sparrows was a penny (Matthew 10:29). Sparrows “neither sow nor reap nor store them in barns,” and despite this God feeds them, “not one of them falls to the ground without God knowing” (Matthew 10:29 ). As for the lilies that live in the wilds and are thrown into the fire when they become dry, God takes care of them and dresses them better than Solomon, the greatest king in the history of the Jews, dressed them. These words were not strange to the listeners of the Lord Jesus, as the following is mentioned in the Book of the Mishnah - which is the book of interpretation of the Holy Scriptures in the Old Testament -: “Have you seen a wild animal or bird practicing a profession, and despite this, they get their needs in order?”

“All these things the nations ask for,” because needs are precisely the content of the pagans’ requests from their gods. The pagan philosopher Cicero says: “We do not pray to the god Jupiter to make us good, but to give us material benefits. We must pray to the gods to grant us wealth, but wisdom must be acquired by ourselves.”

The Lord Jesus stresses that God cares about the smallest things to show us that God “knows that we need all of this” and to assure us that God wants to be a partner with us in our suffering, no matter how small or how great it is. Thus, this Gospel text is not a call to laziness, but rather a call to reach out to God and to infuse His divine life into the folds of our disjointed and scattered lives around daily needs. It is a call to restore unity to our earthly being through our longing for the new life that the Lord Jesus Christ bestowed through the salvation he accomplished through the cross and resurrection from the dead.

This is the basis that helps us understand Jesus' saying not to worry about what we eat or what we drink. If God is our Father, this means that we should rely on Him completely like young children rely on their parents. We reside in our Father's house, and therefore we have nothing, nor should we, nor do we want anything nor need anything. He gives us what He wants, because as a Father, He knows what we ask more than we do (Matthew 7:7-11). If we accept Jesus and walk on his path, we must act like this, and seek the Kingdom of God first, that is, for God to be in reality our Master and Father, and God as Master and Father gives us what we need just as He gives the birds of the air food and the lilies of the field clothing.

My parish bulletin
Sunday, June 27, 1993
Issue 26

Inspired by the Bible

On the first Sunday after Pentecost, we read in the Mass what Jesus said: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,” and also: “Everyone who has forsaken houses, or brothers, or sisters, father, mother, wife, children, or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold.” And inherit eternal life.” Jesus' call to us is to follow Him alone, and in order to follow Him, He must come first in our hearts, so we must leave everything for Him.

On the second Sunday after Pentecost, the Gospel recounts the call of the first disciples, and shows us the practical application of what Jesus asked in the Gospel of the previous Sunday. Jesus was on the shore of the Sea of Galilee when he saw Simon and his brother Andrew fishing, and he said to them, “Follow me.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. A little while later, Jesus met James and John, and they were fishing with their father, Zebedee. So Jesus called them and immediately they left their boat and their father and followed him.” Jesus sometimes asks us to give up our work, our work equipment, and everything we own. The disciples left their Father to follow Jesus. Sometimes Jesus asks us to give up family relationships and human friendships. This is not only a negative thing, the positive aspect of it is following the teacher.

After Jesus asked us to leave every care in the world to follow him, we ask: But how do we live? The answer comes in today’s Gospel on the third Sunday after Pentecost: “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?” What is required first is to unify our inner life: “If your eye is simple, your whole body will be luminous.” “No one can serve two masters, so I tell you not to be anxious about what you will eat or what you will drink...” If your heavenly Father feeds the birds of the air and clothes the lilies of the field... how much less does he not care about our needs? We must understand these words of Jesus with precision and discernment. The Lord Jesus calls some people to follow Him in absolute poverty. But most people have family and social responsibilities and must secure their needs by working. God does not hold them accountable for that, and allows them to pay attention to their financial needs and the needs of their families. But God rejects miserliness and excessive attachment to money, which indicates a lack of faith. “Your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things, but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you.” Whoever's calling is to give up everything, and whoever has the duty of ensuring his family's livelihood, let each of them trust in God because He will not abandon any of them. They only have to seek above all else the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Where do we look for the Kingdom of God? Within us, in our hearts, in our consciences and also around us.

The two main ideas that we take from today’s Gospel are: the priority of seeking the Kingdom of God, and trusting in the Father’s love regarding the needs of life.

My parish bulletin
Sunday, July 9, 2000
Issue 28

Explanation - from the bulletin of the Diocese of Latakia

The lamp of the body is the eye: The Fathers and many modern scholars believe that Jesus here refers to the mind, which is the spiritual eye of the human soul.

Saint John Chrysostom says: ^[1]Just as the eye is in the body, so is the mind in the soul. If the mind is corrupted by enslaving it to earthly treasures, then it becomes dark... Continue reading.

Just as the health of the physical eye helps a person to distinguish the correct path, what is in it, and how to follow it with integrity, this also happens with the soul, which when it is upright and walks in accordance with the divine commandments, then the human life is in the light.

On the contrary, when the inside of a person turns away from God and clings to the corrupt world, he is excluded from sin to such an extent that he continually advances towards the worst, drawing with him the entire being of man to the path of destruction. In sin there is also progress, but for the worse, and this is what happens when a person no longer remembers God and surrenders to his desires, which increases his distance from God towards the arena of corruption and death.

Here we conclude that the necessary condition for submitting to God’s will and for trusting God is the purity of the spiritual eye, that is, returning at every step, returning the soul to God, because this is how it is possible to escape from corruption and spiritual blindness.

^[2]No one can serve two masters - for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other - you cannot... Continue readingHere Jesus expresses in a clear and absolute way the inability of a person to serve two masters as a slave at the same time, and thus explains the reason for this impossibility. The reason lies not only in the legal nature of the two masters or in their requirements, but especially in the choice of the internal slave. This slave will feel the necessity of preferring one master over another by “loving him,” so he will bear his yoke without complaint, while feeling contempt toward the other, which will create a split in his internal position and in his external behavior as well, so he cannot continue to be bound by such covenants.

^[3]Therefore I say to you: Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will wear. Isn't life better than... Continue reading (Matthew 6:25).

Humans are concerned with matters of living, with food and drink that ensure the continuation of life, with clothing that preserves and beautifies the body. But in the ecstasy of their interests, they forget that life is not equal to food, and that the body is not maintained by mere clothing.

The continuation of life does not depend on material goods that provide something else. Facing life with this human and materialistic viewpoint is a kind of ignorance, a kind of lack of simple logic, because it neglects the divine source of life. Only by clinging to God - who presupposes perpetual purity of the spiritual eye - can man face life in a right way, thus freed from the worrying concern of making a living.

^[4]Why do you care about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. Do not toil or spin.

The disciple of the Master must surrender himself completely to God’s care and love. This applies in particular to freedom from the demands of living in terms of anxious and pressing concerns, and to place hope and dependence on the Lord who loves mankind. The disciple of Christ must constantly search for the heavenly homeland, anticipating with total desire eternal communion with the triune God. Thus, the Christian physically passes through the present earthly time without worrying about the future because he has complete confidence in the heavenly Father’s mercies and care.

Lattakia Archbishopric Bulletin
10 / 7 / 2005
Number: 28