“Do not give what is holy to
dogs; and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them
under foot and turn and maul you…
“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this
is the law and the prophets.
“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is
easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is
narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
(Mt 7, 6. 12-14)
This is the Word of the Lord.
Today’s gospel reading
is made up of three instructions that apparently have no link, nothing in
common except that they are reported as spoken by Jesus Christ at the end of
what we normally call “The Sermon on the Mount”.
The first one instructs
the faithful not to give what is holy to dogs and not to throw pearls before pigs.
The reason given is that dogs and pigs, will not appreciate the value of the
things we throw to them, and they will turn against us and harm us. It is not
easy to understand what Jesus really means by this, and scholars try to
understand the instruction. I will not enter the discussion here. However, it
seems to me that it asks us to identify and appreciate what is holy, and that
pearls are precious. We do not, normally, throw away things that we value or
that are precious. In a way, then, Jesus asks us to learn how to make good use
of what we have.
Listen here
Listen here
