The Book of Genesis teaches that jealousy is the door through which the Satan entered the world, opening the way to everything that is evil. This vice is an extremely noxious poison that devours the heart and has from the beginning of humanity. The evidence of jealousy is bitterness and gossip that leads not to life but death.
You might recall the Book of Genesis which teaches us of the
jealousy Eve had of God, seeking to become omniscient by partaking of a stupid
apple. Can you imagine believing that? Or, that snakes talk! How’s that for an excuse! This vice devoured Eve’s heart to the point she blamed everyone and
everything other than herself for her freely-willed choice and its negative
consequences for herself, Adam, their family, and every one of their descendants!
The Book of Genesis also teaches the jealousy Eve’s son, Cain,
had for his brother Abel. The vice devoured Cain’s heart to the point he
murdered his brother, introducing fratricide into the world, destroying the
family unit as God created it in and from the beginning. Today, many people value life based solely for its utility in making them happy, thus justifying their freely-willed abortions and euthanizing of the elderly, infirmed, and those deemed “useless” to society.
Today’s first reading from the Book of Numbers reminded us of
the jealousy the Hebrew people had for the those who left worship early and returned
home, yet also enjoyed God’s blessing. The vice so consumed their hearts they
introduced division via bitterness and gossip into the People of God by forming
two factions: those believed to be deserving of God’s blessing and another faction of those who are undeserving
of God’s blessing—thus destroying the unity of God’s people as God created them
in and from the beginning. The legacy of this brokenness in the unity of God’s people lives on today in the vile hatred among people living in the Middle East.
Finally, today’s gospel reminded us of how jealousy poisoned St.
John’s heart when he saw someone performing miracles in Jesus’ name even though
this person wasn’t a disciple. Once again, bitterness and gossip sowed division and if St. John had his way, Jesus’ disciples would have formed an
exclusive club—a religious clique with rules governing membership—thus destroying the community of Jesus’ followers, as Jesus intended. This sad legacy is alive and well in the liberal progressive and traditional conservative factions of the Church across the globe each of whose members accuse the others of not being “authentically Catholic.” Watch the “Synodal Process” starting this October to see the bitterness and gossip, fueled by the mainstream media’s voracious appetite project the image of hypocritical Christians, play out in the United States just has it has in Germany for the past two years.
Quite rightly, Pope Francis has said the poison of jealousy grows when we “speak
to ourselves,” murmuring in our hearts about what we wish we possessed and don’t or
judging others as undeserving of what they possess and do. Insulating ourselves in a “soap bubble,” the Pope says, we fantasize about all of that which renders us
increasingly incapable of perceiving reality as it is. The evidence is irrefutable: We fill our days with bitterness and we gossip about those undeserving people.
The best thing that can happen to a person whose heart is
poisoned by jealousy—a brutal punch to the ego at first but a great grace in retrospect, just ask St. Paul—is when reality lances that soap bubble and bursts it,
forcing that individual to see how nasty he or she has chosen to become by inviting
the vice of jealousy to poison the power of love that God has breathed into each and
every heart. What began as antipathy toward people expanded into rejecting them, causing
the soap bubble to expand as differences grew into estrangements and to expand even more as estrangements grew into excommunications and to expand yet even more as
those excommunications become death sentences…treating others not as God
intended in and from the beginning but as we judge them to deserve.
That’s what happens when people like you and me don’t protect our
hearts from the poison of jealousy.
We have two choices. We can protect our hearts from the poison of jealousy in the way Catholics who live a “Christmas crib” do: A reactive way—when reality bursts the soap bubble and in our shame, we’re
compelled to confront that reality. Or, we can protect our hearts from the vice
of jealousy in the way Catholics who live a “Crucifix faith” do: The proactive way—by identifying when we’re murmuring in our hearts
and, taking a step back, asking ourselves two questions: “Why do I feel this
way?” and “What’s really going on inside of me?”
When the righteous Hebrew people gave evidence their hearts
had become infected by the vice of jealousy, Moses asked the right question causing their soap bubble to burst: “Are
you jealous for my sake?” Grateful to God for having blessed the Hebrew people with
the gift of freedom, Moses responded, “Would that the LORD might bestow his spirit
on them all!”
Jesus responded similarly when St. John expressed his bitterness and gossiped, revealing the jealousy devouring his heart of God’s love. Jesus said to the Beloved Disciple:
“For whoever is not against us is for us.”
None of us can know what lurks in the human heart except by its
fruit. The fruit of jealousy is bitterness and
gossip which generates dissension and division, all of which inevitably leads to the death
of relationships and always ends in broken hearts.
What we’re to love and what gives joy to the heart, the Psalmist reminded us,
are the precepts of the Lord. Only these are true and trustworthy; only these refresh the
soul and give wisdom to anyone irrespective of IQ. The fruit of obedience to
these precepts is revealed in in their fruit: Words expressing gratitude for God’s many blessings.
Diligently keeping the precepts of the Lord doesn’t generate gratitude—after
all, God didn’t create us as perfect creatures but imperfect creatures. What generates gratitude is identifying our faults and working diligently to develop the discipline it takes to align our thoughts, words, and actions with
those precepts. This discipline protects our hearts from the poison of jealousy and
remain free from serious sin, thus allowing gratitude to flourish in our hearts and its fruits to evidence themselves in our life: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Those are the fruits of the Holy Spirit revealing God’s presence in our hearts.
It’s a great grace not to be jealous and to imprison oneself to the sadness being resentful, bitter, envious, and gossiping about other people. But, we have
to make the decision not to live that way, either reactively—as Catholics who live a “crib faith” do by allowing events to cause the soap bubble
in which they live to burst—or proactively—as Catholics who live a “crucifix faith” do, not bemoaning what they don’t have but developing
gratitude for the many gifts God has already given them.
That represents this week’s challenge from scripture: To begin
trusting more in God and growing in gratitude for the many gifts God has already bestowed upon us, many of which we take for granted.
How can we protect our hearts from this noxious poison and its ravages?
First and foremost: By disciplining ourselves no longer to speak to
ourselves and murmur about others, allowing that to fester in our hearts and give expression to it through our bitterness and gossip. Our challenge is to develop an
awareness that we’re having those conversations as we’re having them and to put an end to them by focusing upon one of God’s many blessings and expressing gratitude to God it. This simple,
yet very powerful practice dilutes the poison’s power as gratitude gradually grows more powerful, generating a spiritual antibody.
Second but no less important: Verbalize that gratitude, first, in prayer—giving thanks to
God for those many blessings—and, second, by expressing our gratitude to others
for the blessing of God they have been and are in our lives. This practice of only learning to “say only the good things they need to hear, things that will really help them” (Ephesians 4:29). This practice is simple yet very powerful, cleansing the heart of the aggregated sludge of poison that’s built up in our hearts. Then, when there’s no longer much if any jealousy to fuel our words, there will be no bitterness that can morph into hostile, angry, and hurtful words or gossip that “saddens the Holy Spirit with whom we have been sealed.”
This spiritual exercise doesn’t guarantee any of us will be
freed of the vice of jealousy this week or for that matter any time soon. But
it does guarantee that over time, our witness as the People of God will be one of a “grateful children of God”—unlike Eve, Cain, the Hebrew people in the desert, and St. John—who no longer cause others who believe in God to sin and of whom Jesus
said in today’s gospel, “It would be better for if a great millstone were put around their necks and they were cast into the sea.”
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